I love boys

I love boys. I love boys of all ages. I love teenage boys. They are pretty darn cute. I love how they are so much like elementary school boys. They draw pictures of sports cars on the backs of their quizzes and doodle little drawings of guys shooting each other and falling down cliffs. They think bodily functions are funny and they like to play tricks. They take any opportunity to throw things and try to make them into a goal or basket... wadded up papers into the recycle box, water bottles into the garbage can, white board markers onto the marker holder tray. They draw goofy stuff on my white board, people and cop cars and their names, and I have one super adorable kid, football and basketball player, smart kid, that makes me stuff using construction paper, scissors, and glue during study hall when he has nothing else to work on. Today he made me a monkey. Last week it was an Easter bunny and Easter egg. It's totally random. And totally cute.

I've had a sad awakening over the last few days with my teenage boys, though. Sexism is alive and well. I have heard some of the most jaw-dropping, at least for me, things over the last few days. Such as:
*It's a man's job to provide and it's a woman's job to take care of the kids. She had them; why wouldn't she be the one to take care of them?
*In a marriage, both people should have a say, but it should be the man that has the final say.
*Women want the man to support them, and the man puts in everything [by everything, he meant money] and she's just there, and then if they get divorced she wants half of everything.
*Seriously, how often does your dad make dinner? My dad never cooks. He doesn't know how. [some classmates agreed that their experiences were similar.]
*Men get better jobs than women, so they should provide.
We're about to read The Taming of the Shrew, so I gave them a list of about 13 statements that they had to agree or disagree with and tell why. Then we had a big discussion/debate about it. Some of the statements pertained to relationships, marriage, and gender sterotypes, because those are issues addressed in the play. I was blown away by girls agreeing with the guys on some of these. There are several purposes to discussions like these, and one is critical thinking skills. To have them challenge one another's notions and form and re-form opinions. And for me to push them to think more in-depth when necessary. One of the statements I like to give them for this purpose is "Boys should act like boys and girls should act like girls." They think it's so simple, but they really come up with some debate, and I push them to analyze what that really means and examine their biases and beliefs and better define them. But it's frustrating because they'll only dig so far before they become resistant or bored, and it's hard to get them to take the next step in questioning. What does it mean to "act like a boy" specifically? Who gets to decide? Why is one thing considered masculine and another feminine, and how do these things change over time? One thing I did love today was one of my favorites, a tough macho football player type who I get the feeling runs with a rough crowd, says, "Guys can be cheerleaders. It's not just a girl thing to be a cheerleader." Many people are quick to associate anything that is largely done by girls as girly, and I loved that he was considering each thing on its merits. He also brought up nursing as something that is often done by women but isn't girly. Then another student said that only girls are secretaries, and when I asked him why he thinks men aren't secretaries, he said, "It's a pretty easy job." I give up. I am quite curious, though, about the messages these kids are getting at home.

I've already hit a roadblock in my goal to be on top of birthdays. I bought a birthday card for my nephew, put a few bucks in it, it's all ready to go... no stamps. I tried to buy stamps at Smith's on Sunday, but it appeared it was going to take an act of Congress to get someone to sell them to me, so I left without them. So I'm late. But it will arrive in the same month as the birthday, and that still counts as improvement for me.