Though I was never sure I wanted children, I have always known I wanted a daughter.
Something about little girls has always made my heart soar. When I found out I was pregnant last November, I was overjoyed at the thought of the girl growing inside of me. I already had a few names picked out, and couldn’t wait to see what she was going to accomplish in this world.
By the time I walked into my 20-week anatomy scan, I was so confident that I was having a daughter that I started calling her by her name in my head as I watched tiny legs kicking about on the monitor. Every old wives’ tale had convinced me of her sex: her initial high heart rate, the stressful couple of months I experienced around conception, and the illness.
Oh, the illness.
I started throwing up around week seven, and by week 19 my husband rushed me to the ER at 3am when the vomiting left me shaking in the bathtub, wrapped in several towels with my head propped over the garbage can because I was too weak to hold it up anymore.
Two and a half days, eight IV bags, and multiple shots of Zophrain later, I came home and finally slept, confident that my feisty growing daughter would be worth the ass-kicking that was this pregnancy.
“It’s a boy!” the ultrasound technician announced.
“A BOY?!” I exclaimed, equal parts excited to finally know the sex and surprised that the feeling I had in my gut could be 100% wrong. I turned to my husband, who I had told for weeks was going to have a little girl, and repeated, “It’s a boy!” Shit. We had not agreed on any boy names. I had zero experience with baby boys. Was she sure it was a boy?
As I dropped my husband off at work and drove home, a melancholic vacancy seeped in while warm tears clouded my eyes. What was it about this exciting news that hurt?
I suppose part of wanting a daughter was the desire to raise a little girl to be resilient, self-confident, and free of heartache. In other words, a second chance to heal some of the trauma I had experienced when I was a little girl, much at the hands of boys and men whose behavior was never monitored or critiqued as closely as mine.
I knew I was up to the challenge of reminding her of the fierce nature of women. Her mama built her career around supporting and empowering women, and was well-prepared to show her that in a world saturated with toxic masculinity, being a woman was a powerful and wonderful thing.
She would challenge the teachers in school who assumed she wasn’t good at Algebra, and well-meaning adults who repeatedly told her she was pretty without making note of how quickly she could climb a tree or how she could look at a map and name all of the countries in South America. And their capitals.
Back home and alone, I threw my bag down, poured a glass of water, and opened my computer. One of the first things I saw was a post a friend shared from a woman with the same name I was going to give our daughter. I laid my head on the table and wept. The feeling of loss was undeniably palpable, and all I could do was work through it for the next couple of hours.
There is an extreme guilt this grief carried with it. As many women as I’ve known who struggled with infertility and pregnancy loss, that I had a healthy baby growing in side of me was a gift.
However before I could celebrate this little boy, I needed space to mourn the loss of the daughter I had spent the better part of my life imagining into existence. Her name, her fiery nature, our shared bond at both being female with all of the advantages and levies that came along with it.
I was also afraid that I didn’t have the toolkit to raise a white boy in a society built around his needs and demands. I knew how to empower and build up, how to have tough conversations about how the world will receive and treat you, but how do I teach him to act responsibly when much of his behavior will be excused by others as “boys will be boys?”
When he is placed at the top of the societal hierarchy, how do I teach him to recognize, then dismantle it?
And then I think of the good, good men I’ve had the distinct pleasure of knowing in my life. My grandfather, who loved his three granddaughters with joyful gentleness that I can still feel. His next door neighbor, who always had a big smile on his face and tapioca pudding for the three rambunctious girls who took over his front yard every Summer. Later in life, I think of the men I’ve dated (well, some…) and the friends I’ve made who have broken down the toxic barriers their predecessors taught me were unavoidable if we were to coexist.
And then I think of the best man I’ve known.
In “Milk and Honey” Rupi Kaur writes:
“no
it won’t
be love at
first sight when
we meet it’ll be love
at first remembrance cause
i’ve seen you in my mother’s eyes
when she tells me to marry the type
of man i’d want to raise my son to be like”
I didn’t get married until I was 34 because settling for anything less than this would never appeal more than the freedom of living wherever and doing whatever I wanted. If I couldn’t guarantee a domestic life better than the one I came from, a life that encouraged me to explore and grow into the best person I could be, then domestic life was not for me.
My partner stands out in a room. He is a tall, straight white man, who has never seen his privilege as anything more than a responsibility to encourage and welcome an equal playing field for everyone else. He is affectionate with animals (even cats, which he’s incredibly allergic to), playful with children, and often the loudest voice in a protest.
Once when we first started dating I jokingly called him a “pussy” like I had learned to do to get a rise out of guy friends, and he looked at me with a straight face and said, “That’s gendered.” My first sincere lesson in feminism from a male partner.
He will come home after a long day at work arguing over eigenvalues with undergrads to discover that he has to cook dinner for his pregnant wife, who did little more than shower today (if he’s lucky). He does so without grievance.
Yesterday I texted him a picture of a little girl’s shirt that said, “Sorry boys, Daddy says I can’t date until I’m 30,” knowing he would share my disgust. He replied with “Burn it. My boy will date boys earlier for sure, if he wants to that is.”
We both roll our eyes when people tell us “But boys are so much easier,” because we know that boys require the same amount of attention and devotion to help them figure this place out.
For the son I want to raise, this is the best partner I could have chosen. I knew that from the moment we met, at a time when children were the furthest thing from my mind, and I know that today, as he wakes up early each morning and brings me a snack so I can sleep a bit later without incident.
With this man, I look forward to raising a boy who is compassionate, kind, affectionate, and an eager ally for all. In this day and age, I can’t imagine a better contribution to the world we live in.
