My Gun Shoots Love

I decided before having children that raising children who were impervious to societally constructed notions of gender and sexual orientation was of priority to me. I recognized before they came along that I was in for an uphill battle, and one that would not be without biological warfare, as I believe strongly in the position "nature" holds over us all. However, I refused to be a part of it. I wanted my future children to be nutured in whatever way it seemed they needed, but not to go along with society's defined roles.

Once my actual children came along, it proved to be difficult. My daughter, dressed in a combination of gender neutral yellows followed by the scores of much needed pink and pinker hand-me-downs from her 4 older girl cousins took to girlishness much more adeptly at first than I was comfortable with. I didn't want to be militant, I know the road of the rebel, so I allowed her to choose once she was able, always offering the more neutral (ok, honestly, the "boy") versions of items first and more excitedly. She rarely bought it. On the occasion of her 3rd Christmas, she was a few months shy of 3 years old, and what she wanted was a pink Princess Aurora(I refuse to call the character Sleeping Beauty. The woman had a name, for goodness sake) dress and I balked. There was so much pink in this dress it made Peptol Bismol look butch. And Disney? Ugh. And a Disney Princess? Double up Ugh Ugh. But I considered the fact that this is what she REALLY wanted. And wasn't raising children who were fulfilled part of my ultimate plan? *Sigh* Yes. And so I bought the dress. And there, on Christmas morning, amongst the fabric wrapping bags, and recycled/upcycled gift tags, and the learning toys, out came that pink dress. The look on her face was priceless, truly. She was thrilled and begged to put it on. As we pulled it over her head, her face aglow with delight, she asked, "Mama, am I a princess?" And I took a deep breath and replied, "Yes, darling, you're a princess. You're a princess who is strong, and brave, and smart!" And she ran her little hands down the front of her Pink Extravaganza and breathed out "And SPARKLY!".

On the other hand of the fence (tm), Mother Nature blessed me with balance in the way of a boy. And what a boy he is. Many many articles I've read on the subject made me realize that no matter how hard I try, I wouldn't be able to keep him from sometimes being aggressive and probably from loving guns and fighting and war. I'd managed to keep him away from transformers and power rangers and all things fighty until he went to preschool and caught on very fast that what these other boys were talking about was COOL. His first Christmas after preschool he was clear, he wanted a Transformer. When asked what kind, he said with much determination, "the kind that turns into a Tree!". Awesome. A hippie transformer. :) Sadly, those days have now passed and he is keen into guns and light sabers and karate. He still hasn't seen enough of these things in the way of movies and the like to truly understand, but man, he wants to.

So yesterday, we were building with this cool buildy thing my sister gave the kids. I made a paint sprayer to paint beautiful paintings, Magnolia built a food ordering device that could make 4 dishes- ice cream, noodles with pesto, grated cheese, and shrimp, and Max made a gun. After playtime came work time, and I went into the yard to prune some fruit trees. Max came along, shooting stuff in his wake, and then offered his gun to me. I took it, wanting to bond and play with him, placed the very large device over my shoulder, took careful aim, and shot, making my exceptionally pitiful shooting noises. He was impressed and asked what I was shooting. I told him I was shooting love into our garden. He looked perplexed and took the gun back. He peered at it suspiciously until his gaze focused on 4 little bolts on one of the gun crossroads. His confused look changed to understanding and said "oh, mama! Did you use the love button?" Smiling, I responded..."yes, honey, I used the love button". He looked again at the gun and pointed to the bolts, naming them. "See, mama, this button is for arrows...this one is for love...this one is for, um" ("good energy?" I offered), "Yes, good energy...and this one is for just blowing things up." Ok. That's ok. As long as sometimes the gun shoots love.