Two boys down the line, Sam Wilson has come to terms with the fact that she didn’t get to make a “mini-me” like a Russian doll. In fact, she’s come to embrace it.
I was quite unnerved when I found out I was making my first son.
Before that moment, I had always thought of childbearing as kind of like a set of Russian dolls. A mother builds her daughter, complete with ovaries and immature eggs, and so on, and so on. I’ve always thought it cool that your children come from eggs your mother made.
‘Wait, I’m building a penis?’ I remember saying to my gynaecologist. ‘That was not what I was expecting. How weird.’
‘Actually, that’s exactly what you are expecting and it’s not weird at all,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this – but that’s how boy babies are made.’
My gynae is a wise-arse.
And then, of course, I built another. And now find myself the only woman in a family of four.
We don’t have any other family living nearby, so I’m it on the chick front. And, as with so much in life, this is both good and bad.
I feel the loss of extended family and community very keenly. I joke about my sons growing up to think all women are loud and foul-mouthed… but the lack of aunts, girl cousins, sisters and grannies means my boys get little chance to build a 3-D Everywoman in their minds: just a larger-than-life mother.
While it scared me to realise I’m by far the most significant female presence in my sons’ lives, over the years I’ve embraced the responsibility.
I built penises, and now I am building men. And they are building me. And that means a lot of learning and unlearning for all of us.
We’ve learnt that ‘be a man’ is just as dreadful as ‘you’re being a girl’. We’ve learnt that while Mom is a bit of a drama queen, she’s the business brain in the family while ‘lunch box king’ Dad is the one who cries in soppy movies. We’ve learnt that Tarantino and Tom Clancey suck at female characters, and we worry about Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber and whether or not they ever get to feel like real people.
I also have learnt not to take the Man Cave that was the study as a personal affront, while the boys have learnt to shout ‘Incoming!’ if they want to avoid seeing my boobs when bursting into my bedroom.
More than anything? I’ve realized what ALL parents realise. You don’t pick family, family picks you. And it’s a giant learning curve for everyone involved.
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