About a Boy

There’s always so much to think about, isn’t there? But often I find that a particular week begs for a particular theme. This week I’ve been thinking about boys. By that I mean what’s expected of boys today. I’ve spent most of my life thinking about, arguing about, complaining about, writing about what’s expected of girls; now that I see what’s going to be expected of my son I’m going to have to straddle two soapboxes.

What started me off was this article by the author Alexandra Adornetto – Why Teenage Boys Suck More Than Vampires – in which she argues that Edward Cullen is the ideal man because real-life, fangless teenage boys are so “dumb, vain and confused”. The only saving grace (as I’m finding is generally the case when The Age prints a horribly one-sided, mean article) were the comments afterwards, standing up for non-cookie-cutter boys. There was also this very good, creative response from author Lili Wilkinson, and another very good riposte by author William Kostakis.

But I had to admit to myself that, when I was a teenage girl, I considered most of the boys I knew to be…well, not dumb, not vain, or confused, but pretty rubbish. I couldn’t understand why they were never on the same page as me – they were more interested in hanging out with their mates, or talking about sport or music, than gazing adoringly into my eyes. What was wrong with them?? This, I thought, was a sign of their total lack of maturity. I wanted to date Johnny Castle from Dirty Dancing. I’m sorry to say that the only difference between my teenage self and Alexandra Adornetto is that she got a column in a national newspaper. Looking back, I wish I’d been more like the teenage boys I considered so immature. I wish I’d seen that my girlfriends were more fun to hang out with, or that interests would last far longer than my latest crush.

Ah, hindsight.

The theme of the week continued when my son’s kinder announced a Footie Day. They wanted to know which team we’d be representing. Football is huge in Melbourne. If you don’t have a team, you’re eyed with suspicion. We don’t have a team. We have not given my son the tools he’ll need to be a cookie-cutter Melbourne sports fan. I found myself thinking: should we? Will he turn round to us in a few years and curse us? Will he get left out at school? Will he give two hoots? It’s so hard to tell when they’re young – you want to let them become their own person, make their own choices, but you’re the biggest influence on their lives. Take last weekend – my son suddenly piped out of nowhere about our friend’s baby, who is breastfed: “Why does she drink from her mum?” I told him that’s where the baby’s milk was and that it was really good for her. Half an hour later we were on the train and I noticed he was holding his new plastic lizard up to his breast. He smiled up at me: “Lizard’s having milk.” It was kind of beautiful and enlightened, the lizard part being the only slightly weird factor.

There was one more event that fit with the theme. He awoke from a rare afternoon nap, sighed deeply and said gravely: “Mum… I think I’m going to try salad.” I thought to myself: Son, you are a wonderfully unique boy who breastfeeds his lizards, can’t play football and wants to try salad. Good luck out there. (I’m right behind you.)