Boys will often respond angrily, angry at the feminine instead of being angry at those who are being mean. They will denigrate or break things that are considered girly. For instance, a girl might wear a shirt they would like to have, but they’ll call it ugly: That’s just garbage stuff for girls. They’ll make it sound like something bad, something worth less, while what’s really going on is that they’re angry because they are shut out from having access to what’s considered feminine. Teaching boys to distance themselves from “the feminine” is part of the mechanism that keeps “femininity” subordinate to “masculinity.”
It can be particularly painful when adults are mean, especially when it happens at preschool, which is supposed to be a place for children to try new things and develop free of limiting gender stereotypes. Many parents might keep the sparkles and glitter and other “feminine” accessories, like barrettes and nail polish, from boys to protect them from getting teased. But that’s not a solution that strengthens their self-esteem. It’s better to see children as strong individuals who are not satisfied with just the masculine and choose to support them so that they dare to meet and handle other people’s reactions. For many years now, girls have been encouraged to stake a claim to everything that is coded as masculine, and to claim their right to the entire pie, not just half. Boys have that same right.
Suggestions
Let all children wear clothes with sparkles if they want to. Buy sparkly clothes online if you don’t want to confront gender-segregated stores.
Children who challenge gender roles are strong people. Boys can handle some resistance when they want to approach things that are considered feminine.
If you feel you have to say something, try this: Here you are, all sparkly! to all children, irrespective of their gender. You don’t have to say that they look nice; it’s enough to simply recognize the sparkling.
Talk to any sales associates who tell boys that the clothes they choose are girls’ clothes and vice versa. Try saying: I know that you mean well, but my son likes sparkles.
Be Careful!
“When the girls were climbing, they were told to be careful, and when they jumped down, they were told to sit down on their bottoms first and then jump down.”
—raimo, parent of a three-year-old
“At gymnastics, the children were climbing on rope ladders. When girls were climbing, the instructors kept yelling at them to be careful. The instructors kept showing with their entire bodies that the children could fall any second. When boys were climbing, the instructors just stood there quietly.”
—josefin, parent of a five-year-old
Infants need a lot of care. They are almost completely helpless and can barely move. As they grow, so does their desire to explore the world. Starting out, they put everything in their mouths. Then they learn to sit up and to crawl. It may take a while, but eventually most babies learn that it’s better to crawl feet first down the stairs. Children need a lot of space to learn to move around and practice their gross motor skills. Adults often have a hard time trusting that their children can manage things themselves, like feeding themselves or riding a bike. Our fear of them getting hurt will sometimes make us limit their development. The gender trap we can step into is that most of us worry more about girls than we do about boys. Early on, girls have to learn to be careful and to look out. If children have to hear Watch out! You could fall! Be careful! over and over, that can put a damper on the joy of daring to test new things and being creative.
Suggestions
Instead of repeating Watch out! and Be careful! Tell children what they can do:
• Ride on the smooth side of the road.
• Hold on to the large branch up there. That one is sturdy.
• Lie down flat on the ground so that the swing won’t hit your head.
Let all children try doing things on their own. Helping them or doing it yourself might be simpler and save time in the short run, but, in the long run, you’re not doing your child—or yourself—any favors by not letting them do it themselves.
Catching yourself when you fall is a great thing to practice while playing. Practice on soft pillows or a soft carpet. Roll around and do somersaults and move around in ways that teach children to feel the possibilities of their bodies.
Play balance games in the woods, at the playground, or in other fun areas. Demonstrate that it’s easier to keep your balance if you hold out your arms or crouch down a bit to steady yourself.
A child’s cries don’t always mean that they want to be picked up and cuddled. If you think everything is more or less alright, show the child that you are paying attention and ask questions. Sometimes children want affirmation and are more interested in showing how and where they got hurt than in being hugged:
• I can see that you fell.
• You really caught yourself when you fell.
• Where does it hurt?
• What can you try to do to avoid falling?
Strong, Thinner, Loveliest
“One of my friends gave my son a Batman costume. The costume was padded with large ‘muscles.’ I just have to wonder, though, if anyone would’ve thought it was okay to give a little girl a princess dress with fake breasts?”
—johan, parent of a two-year-old and a four-year-old
“My daughter complains about being fat almost every single day. It makes me so sad, and I just don’t know what to do. She’s so pretty and just six years old.”
—frederico, parent of a six-year-old
“My son got a cut above his eyebrow. When we went to the ER to get stitches, the doctor said he would have a cool scar on his forehead. Everyone we ran into said the same thing, that the scar was cool.”
—sarah, parent of a five-year-old
“My friend’s children were bitten by a dog when they were tiny—the girl, on her shoulder, and the boy, on his face. It was horrible, but the first thought that struck me was that it was a good thing it wasn’t the girl who had been bitten on the face. These ideas we have about girls and beauty run deep.”
—diana, parent of a thirteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old
Boys who are strong and muscular and girls who are slim and pretty. Sound familiar? We see them every day in ads and commercials. Boys in briefs with six-pack abs or skinny girls in tight clothes. These images affect us, and instead of getting angry at them for not representing reality, we get angry at ourselves for not living up to them. Muscles are good because they make the body healthy, in much the same way that obesity is not good because it can lead to disease. But a wide range of possible appearances can be found between these two extremes. Marketers claim that everyone ought to understand that of course the images are airbrushed and altered and that they aren’t real. But have we really kept up with the fact that hardcore photoshopping is standard practice these days? How are our children supposed to understand any of this?
Approximately 20 million females and 10 million males in the US have a clinically significant eating disorder at some point in their lifetime.
—The National Eating Disorders Association
In 2016, Mattel introduced Barbies with curvy, tall, and petite body types.
Very few people can live up to the ideal and the stereotype. A lot of boys and girls spend hours on end at the gym or in the weight room building muscles, or burning fat and losing weight. Not all boys are big and strong, and not all girls are slim. Very few of them look like the pictures in the ads and fashion magazines.
For girls, the range of accepted body shapes is more limited than for boys. Those who don’t fit inside that range have a harder time developing a strong sense of self-esteem and the feeling that they are fine the way they are. In society, the ideal image of a boy is of someone who’s muscular, but this is not as strong a requirement as the one that says girls have to be slim. Once again, we step into the gender trap that tells girls that their worth is tightly tied to their bodies and how they look. At an early age, many girls find themselves
gazing critically at their bodies in front of the mirror. It’s sad for average-weight five-year-olds to complain about being fat. Boys are often free to be slim, lanky, or chubby; they’re taught that their appearance isn’t as big a part of their identity. To be sure, this is changing, and, more and more, boys are being drawn into this anxiety over appearances. They’re supposed to be muscular and live up to the existing ideal for men. Boys are supposed to care about how they look, but not too much. A boy who lingers in front of the mirror is likely to be called “vain” or “girly.” And neither label is meant as a compliment.
Suggestions
Encourage all children by focusing on characteristics that don’t have to do with how they look. Talk about what they do, feel, and think, instead of how they look. This helps children develop a good sense of self.
Talk about how images in magazines and in ads aren’t real, in the same way you explain that scary movies are made in studios—that it’s make-believe.
Make sure children have access to magazines that aren’t all about looks and bodies.
Talk about your own body with your child. What do you like about your body? By showing that you like yourself even though you don’t look like the ideal, you help your child understand that those ideals aren’t real or important.
Show your children how easy it is to manipulate images with an app or on a computer. Talk about how images are changed in order to catch people’s attention and make us buy things.
But Her Hair Was So Pretty …
“Everyone thought Lukas was a girl when he had long hair. It got to be such a pain that I finally just cut it all off.”
—anna, parent of a three-year-old
“I cut my daughter’s long hair this past summer. Wow, did that ever bother people! We were constantly told it was a shame, that her hair had been so beautiful. And then they tried to make things better by saying that it would grow out again. Some of them came right out and said that girls are prettier with long hair.”
—gustav, parent of a two-year-old
“My niece hardly has any hair at all, but her parents insist on styling it with bobby pins and rubber bands.”
—amir, uncle of a two-year-old
When they’re very young, boys are allowed to have long hair. But once they’re a few years old, out come the scissors. We might wish that boys and girls could get to choose for themselves how they wear their hair, but it’s not always easy to break the unwritten hair rules. Being different and choosing your own path often means that other people want to try to correct you or comment on what you’re doing. Most children “know” that girls have long hair and boys have short hair. Hair is strongly gendered and thereby fraught with meaning. Luscious, long locks spell feminine and short hair spells masculine. In general, very few girls have short hair. Girls very rarely have the same kind of crew cuts that many boys have. Short hair doesn’t lend itself to barrettes and pony tails, but then again, no combs are needed to sort out tangles, either. Many parents are concerned about hair styles, worried that a style will turn out wrong, and their concern is rarely focused on anything practical. If it were, all kids would have short hair in the summer, and they would let it grow in the winter. For many girls, hair length signifies status within a group. The girl with the longest hair is the winner. Children are expected to follow gendered hair rules, and a girl who cuts off her long hair and a boy who won’t cut his can count on having their choices questioned.
Suggestions
Tell all children that their hair is nice, whether it’s short or long.
Let children try having long hair and short hair, so that they can see what it feels like and what they prefer. Short hair can feel good in the heat, and it doesn’t get in the way when you’re playing. Long hair is warmer and can cover your ears and keep them warm and can be fun to hide behind or style into pony tails and braids.
Include wigs as part of options for playing dress up. It’s fun for all children to have a chance to see what it feels like to have different hairstyles.
If a child changes their hairstyle, comment on the fact that a change has occurred, rather than on how they look:
• I can see more of your face now. That’s fun!
• What does it feel like when you shake your head?
• Did you get to hold the scissors yourself?
What Do You Have Between Your Legs?
“My brother is so proud that his son has ‘found his thing, already!’ I’ve never heard a parent say the equivalent about their daughters when they’ve found their ‘things.’”
—mia, parent of a one-year-old
The word snopp (penis, willy; pl. snoppar) entered the Swedish language in the 1960s. In 2006, the word snippa (vulva and vagina; pl. snippor) was included in the dictionary of the Swedish Academy.
Girls rarely get to experience the pride with which boys talk about their penises. Instead, they are taught to keep quiet about what they have between their legs. Obviously, this will affect how they think about their genitals, their bodies, and their worth. Boys’ views of girls are affected, too, since, it’s easy for them to come to the conclusion that girls are lacking something. Which, of course, is completely wrong: girls have their snippa. In English, we still don’t have accurate terms in standard use for a girl’s genitals.
Some people feel that it’s culturally insensitive to talk about vulvas and vaginas. Sure. In most cultures, including Swedish culture, the reigning gender inequality dictates that women’s genitals be rendered invisible. But all children, irrespective of their origins, need access to positive words that describe their bodies. Only then can we talk about vulvas and penises in the same matter-of-fact way that we talk about other body parts, like ears and feet.
The point is to name all body parts so that we can talk about the body and how it works.
Suggestions
Start using the words vulva and vagina if you don’t already and notice how proud girls are to have words for their genitals. As an adult, you will also appreciate having a word for “down there.” Or why not try the Swedish snippa?
Family nicknames for body parts are also fine. Nicknames can show that a body part is important, one to be proud of.
Use accurate terminology for your own genitals when you talk with children. It’s easier to communicate when you use the same terminology for adults and children.
If it’s hard for your daughter to see her vulva, give her a “snippa mirror,” so that she can see it all, including the labia and her clitoris. It’s easier for boys to see their scrotum and penis.
Who Can Touch?
Throughout history, children have played games in which they explore their bodies. But adults have had different limits for what’s okay for vulvas and vaginas and for penises. In Sweden in the seventies, we took for granted that children might find it pleasurable to touch their genitals. Today, many adults have a hard time talking about the fact that children might enjoy touching themselves. Is this because we’re embarrassed, or are we worried children will injure themselves when they explore their bodies? It seems especially hard for adults to accept that girls touch their genitals. Boys tugging at their penises somehow seems more natural. Perhaps this is because it dangles loose and is easy to grab onto, but it probably has more to do with history and conceptions of male and female sexuality.
If we don’t talk with children about their vulvas and penises in a positive light, as parts of their bodies that it can feel good for them to touch, we risk shaming them and guilting them about their bodies. What are they supposed to think when they realize it feels good but that it’s not allowed? When we don’t name what they do, we leave them vulnerable to society’s stereotypes about female and male sexuality. Narratives about youth sexuality and adult sexuality are not gender equal.
Boys and men are described as having strong sexual urges. Girls and women can be interested in sex, but they’re rarely described as having sexual needs. Women who have many sex partners will often be called “whor
es” or “sluts,” which are not flattering terms. Men with many sex partners are admired and called “players” and “studs.” The exact same behavior is considered positive for boys and negative for girls.
In order to convey a positive perspective on the vagina, the penis, and the rest of the body, we need words. What words do you think are good? Snippa, snopp, penis, vulva, clitoris, labia, vagina, glans, testicle, bottom, butt, butthole, fiddle, finger, masturbate, sperm, seed, egg, uterus, kiss, flutter, horny, have sex, make love.
Suggestions
If a child is playing with their genitals, validate their behavior and explain that it’s okay to explore your own body:
• I notice that you’re touching your snippa/snopp.
• I notice that you’re exploring your body, but we’re eating right now, so you’ll have to do that later.
• I notice that you’re touching your vulva/penis. Everyone does that from time to time.
Try to provide straightforward answers to questions about genitals and sexuality. Children take in a lot that leads to questions, and simple answers are better than none. Young children are not embarrassed about bodies. They are curious.
Don’t saddle children with adult ideas about sexuality. Validate them in their discoveries—that’s all they need.
Explain that their genitals are theirs and that they decide whether to touch them and how. Just like children get to decide whether or not they want to fiddle in their nose. By giving children a chance to explore what feels good, you give them the context they need, should something at one point not feel good.
The Swedish Way to Parent and Play Page 11
