This great post at Dad’s House got me thinking about my almost-3 year-old wrestler in training.  There are few things he loves as much as wrasslin’.  When his D-a-d was on the scene (I am so used to spelling it out in conversation that this is now how it formulates in my head) I didn’t do much of the gross motor stuff.  His D-a-d was the one who threw him around and did all the roughhousing.

Now that job falls to me.

I used to be squeamish about it.  I used to think Sami was so fragile and that he might get hurt.  “Be careful,” I warned, hovering Jewish mother that I can sometimes be, as my ex used to do all kinds of crazy flip maneuvers with him.  But I was also pretty amused.  Here they were, these guys, being all aggressive and intense, and I just watched, a quiet female witness.  In those moments, I was irrelevant to their testosterone-driven little world.  But if the play got a little out of hand, and a head was bumped, you know it was me he came to for some boo-boo kissing.

Now, as I am reminded on a daily basis, I am both father and mother to my dear child.  So I kiss boo-boos, and I am all smothering and nurturing and play “baby” with him and snuggle and cuddle and go “ooh” and “ah” and “You’re super cute.”

And I wrassle. 

Mainly we wrassle on the king-sized bed, which is pretty safe and makes throwing him around pretty fool-proof.  Pretty much it consists of rolling around crazily and smooshing each other.  Now that he is about 40 pounds, around one-third of my body weight, I’m not quite so worried about doing damage to him.  It’s more the other way around as he wildly hurtles himself in my direction.  I wonder someday if I will end up with a broken nose, but for now I let go and try to defend myself as best as possible.  When we wrassle, I have to remember to take out my earrings.  This is serious business.  No holds barred, we throw down and it’s might makes right.

I write about this because I’m coming to terms with the fact that right now, Sami does not really have a man in his life.  (Other than one of his teachers at school, who is major eye candy, but…he’s probably about ten years younger than me and that’s material for another post, perhaps.)

Anyway, men to Sami are like fascinating, foreign objects.  I guess I’m sort of feeling that way, too. 

Today, a handyman came over to finish a minor bit of renovation to the kitchen, and Sami was so enamored of him.  He was so incredibly gregarious, and so into him, wanting to play with him and show him his toys, that I was almost a little embarrassed.  I had to figure out a way to get Sami upstairs so that the poor man could finish the job in peace.  Women –except for me–Sami can take or leave.  He’s already got a ton of them in his life.  Today, I really saw today that Sami is starving for some male attention.

Can I teach Sami to be a man?  Of course not.  But I can encourage him to discover his own masculinity and way of being a strong but gentle boy in this world.  I am reading a book right now called Raising Boys without Men, and while I’d like to think I won’t have to do this for very long (Universe - I know you are sending the perfect mate my way!) right now this is the way it is.  I’m raising a boy without a man.

As I write this post, I feel unsure of myself.  I feel like I am essentializing things in some way.  That I’m falling prey to gender stereotypes.  I just don’t know what to make of this whole nature-nurture thing.  I see my kid, and other little boys his age.  And I see my friends’ little girls (a lot of my mama friends have daughters) and they are just…so…different.  How much of it is nature?  How much of it is nurture?  I don’t know. 

I just know that when I am hanging with my son, we are loud, and boisterous, and physical, and we take up a whole lot of space with our energy.  Other times we are quiet and cuddling or reading books, or he is looking at himself in the mirror, declaring his own fabulous self “super-cute.”   But those moments are more in the minority. 

How do I raise him to appreciate his gender without becoming a slave to social constructs of gender?  I don’t know what else to do for him except to try to model my own yin-yang balance.  To embrace the feminine and masculine energies inside of me.  Not to suppress or edit myself in the name of gender.  I do know that it can be a stretch for me to be wrasslin’ and loud and physical and super-agro like he is, but when I lose myself in it, it just feels good. 

It feels good, for now, to be both mother and father to my son.