Boys VS Girl

What defines a girl or what defines a boy? Take away the physical attributes, the clothes and what do you have left? Their personalities, emotions, and their thoughts. But what clearly defines what a boy is or what a girl is?

In our society we seem to have this thought that is stereotypical. Girls seem to be sensitive beings with a kind and nurturing aspect while being overly creative and with a "high" fashion statement. However boys tend to be more energetic, rough, strong, and play football and/ or video games all day long. What if I told you that, that is not the case. Take me for example. Sure I am a girl and I love shopping and wearing fashionable clothing, but I love to get down a dirty in the mud. I'm not afraid to shoot a gun, wrestle with my little brother, or play video games. Yet I am a girl? That's "wrong" isn't it? I'm not suppose to do those kinds of things. I'm suppose to be a good girl and caring about how to become a good housewife by cooking and cleaning all day. Sure I don't mind cleaning, but I'm slowly learning how to cook. I'm not the greatest at it, but I try. How is this possible? Girls having male attributes and vise versa. What kind of example are we setting for our kids who are learning/ experiencing things that are not girly or masculine? What do we do then?

From my experience working with children I say let them be that way. If your 3 or 5 year old son likes to play dress-up and play with barbies, let them. If your 3 or 5 year old daughter loves to wrestle and pretend she's batman, let her. They are experiencing things that are different and exploring as little boys and girls do. However the people of this world aren't as kind. Once they see that your son is interested in fashion, he will most likely be bullied or not accepted by his fellow guy friends and will think something is wrong with him. Sure he may like fashion, but don't discourage him or lead him to become something he isn't interested in. Instead talk and communicate with him, perhaps you two will have something in common and he will be encouraged and have a strong bond with you. What about your daughter? She likes to pretend everything is a weapon and wrestles with a lot. She is also becoming a victim of bullying and isn't accepted by her fellow girl friends. Again, talk to her. 

Sometimes we can't change what we like/ enjoy. That is just who we are. We are all different human beings and it's ok to like or dislike the things that "normal" girls or boys do. I connected well with a lot of guys and had more guy friends than gal pals. I related better to them and I still do, in some aspect. Sure I do like some of the girly things in life, but some things I despise or hate that most girls do/ like. But over the years I have made friends with some girls and have become close to them. Turns out some girls are like me, they like a lot of masculine things yet they also have Gal Pals. I think thats what life is. We are all different each and every one of us. We all like different and unique things and we need to let our children know that it's ok. But not take it or misinterpret it as something else. Just cause your child likes Barbies instead of gun or likes to dress like a Tom boy rather than with sparkles or glitter doesn't mean that they are entirely different or abnormal. 

By misinterpretation I mean we can't automatically assume that because our son likes the color pink, wears heels, and is very touchy with his friends (meaning he likes to hug, poke, or just touch them a lot). This does not mean he has "gay" intentions. My teacher says that being "gay" is identifying who you are. Just because your child likes "girly" things and is very touchy with his friends doesn't mean he is having "gay" feelings or intentions. He is too young to know that exactly. Maybe he sees touching as a sign of affection or maybe he has older sisters and no brother so he associates the color pink as his sisters. Perhaps he likes heels because they all around the house and maybe he doesn't have any "manly" dress up clothes for him to wear. A lot of factors can play into this so we have to be careful with how we interpret these attributes our children come across. We could do more harm than good to them at an early age. 

Tradition, Tradition, Tradition

Traditions have been passed down for many years or maybe some have just started. Whether your tradition is putting the star on top of the christmas tree, painting easter eggs, celebrating Mardie Gras, or whatever it may be. That is what makes your family special and unique. Traditions can be amongst family members or even with a group of friends, roommates, etc. For some, traditions are everything for some it may be a time or event to bring family together and that's how it should be. Something to remember and something to hold onto and pass it down to your next family.

I'm not married yet and there are some traditions that are very unique and special that I would love to pass down in my own family. My family has many Christmas traditions. They range from decorating the family tree with homemade ornaments and reminiscing where we got them or who made them for us. Baking a sweet treat for our neighbors near the season, watching Sesame Street Christmas, decorating a gingerbread house together with my siblings, an event calendar, putting cookies out (even though my little brother and I are old enough to know who Santa really is) and putting out reindeer food for Rudolf to find us (oatmeal and glitter mixed together and sprinkle outside on your front lawn, it's really fun and exciting for your kids) All these traditions I hold onto very dearly and I realized that a lot of family members have other traditions too, such as opening gifts on Christmas Eve. I've never heard of that before but a lot of students in my Family Relation class do this and it was an eye opener for me.

We all do traditions or things that mean something to our family. One was holding hands during dinner prayer. I've always liked the concept of it and even though I don't do it in my family I wouldn't be opposed doing it with my future family one day. And that's the thing, we are so diverse and different even in our family traditions. We marry into a family and realize that some traditions we do can "clash" or "don't make sense." For me I enjoy all different kinds of cultures and traditions amongst those cultures. Some celebrate Day of the Dead, Mardi Gras, The Passover, or even Rosh Hashanah, so why do people "fight" or have "issues" with bringing in traditions into a marriage? Perhaps people don't like change and suddenly changing or mixing things up. Perhaps they just don't understand where they come from and why they have those neat and fun traditions? I have an example for instance that could help shed some light on this question.

In High School I  was in the Marching Band (Clarinet if you're wondering). It was a really enjoyable and fun experience to be able to do something that neat. Marching Band was hard and difficult and I spent days practicing and memorizing. When the day came for competitions we did a lot of traditions that I had no clue that would mean so much to me. Before we went to march on the field everyone would stand around my band director and we would pray for a good solid minute. Praying to do our best, march with confidence, and to be able to place in something. Not a lot of kids knew what praying was, but I think in these moments they understood what it was. Some I knew weren't religious or thought the idea was lame, but I knew deep down it did mean something and they all understood why we "needed" to pray. It was to calm us down and have peace in our hearts and heads. Sometimes we lost and sometimes we won, even 1st place. When the competition ended we packed up and drove back home and when we won, carrying that trophy on the bus, we knew what the next day would bring. It filled us with pride and happiness.

We would all file into the band room with smiles and congrats all around. Then our band director (Jay Ronk) would walk in and say how proud he was of us, sometimes he'd get teary eyed. We would watch our show and see/ heard what we needed to improve and why. After watching our show our band director sat in a chair, draped a multicolored towel over his shoulder, take off his glasses and close his eyes. Then everyone pulled out cans of temporary color spray. We would color his hair and mustache in a variety of colors ranging from green, blue, black, silver, yellow, and pink. When we were done he'd look at himself in the mirror and with a huge grin on his face. He worse that the rest of the day...and I mean THE WHOLE DAY! He wore it around the school and even take his wife out to dinner. We all thought it was funny, but we realized what it meant to him. He wore it with pride and everyone knew what the trademark meant. Everyone who knew Jay Ronk with this hair dye job knew what it meant. It meant that his band won. When he was asked why the funky hairstyle he would reply with a smile on his face and tell them the tradition. He has retired now and I don't know if the new director does the same thing as Jay Ronk did, but it was a tradition I was proud to see and witness.

I told these two stories about my band and Jay Ronk because it showed what traditions can do in a community or in a small family even. Carrying traditions and making new ones in the future. It's ok to adapt and create new traditions into your own family because we are all different and it's ok. We need to step out of our comfort zone and do things that can help/ benefit in out family. Traditions help bring families together and can create loving memories.

What are your traditions that you like to do with your family or ones that you've created/ adopted when you got married?