Part 4
What I’ve Learned About Boys (So Far)
Boys like to touch, handle and manipulate things. They pick them up, take them apart, and turn them upside down and inside out. Discovering a new thing with buttons or mechanical parts is often a cause for celebration. When the twins were around a year old they became fascinated with the thermostat on the living room wall. No matter what we did to keep them from reaching it they managed to find their way back, climbing whatever they needed to in order to push those buttons. They once changed the setting to Celsius by pushing the unknown, but precise sequence and combination of buttons. (We lived with that setting for months until my husband accidentally reset it to Fahrenheit one day by alternately pushing random buttons and swearing under his breath). Another of their favorite activities involved plucking the keys off the computer keyboard. I have a friend whose three-year-old boy loves to play with the coffee grinder. In a boy’s world of play nothing is off limits; coffee grinder, computer, thermostat, toilet, toilet paper, microwave, laundry hamper, dirty clothes in the laundry hamper, clean clothes in drawers, clean clothes in laundry baskets, laundry baskets, electrical outlets, cords and plugs, refrigerator doors (for opening, closing, emptying and climbing), any and all furniture, pet food, bird food, bird feeder, grilling charcoal (new and used), holes in the ground, tools for digging holes in the ground, anything with any kind of button, their own streams of urine, kitchen utensils that mom thought were out of reach… Sometimes this kind of play can look and even feel destructive or disrespectful to the responsible adult. However, I’m certain the intention is anything but one of destruction and disrespect. There is a purpose in this play to sate curiosity and the drive to explore and discover. It helps me to think of it as deconstruction rather than destruction. When my own adult desires for order, neatness and containment begin to surface I look at the deconstruction all around me and feel gratitude for the spirit and joy that created them.
So, boys are messy. They play messy. They throw things, make huge piles of things, and knock them down or jump on or hide in them. They wrestle, run into things and smash things into each other. They eat messy. They squish, mash and pick apart their food. They put food in their cups and the contents of their cups on their plates. Their arts and crafts are messy. Paint, markers, glue and stickers are for paper as well as any exposed skin or object nearby. It’s not that they are messy people, per se. This messiness results from their tendency toward a very physical and kinesthetic approach to interacting with the world around them. Watch a young boy try to sit at the table for a meal for fifteen minutes. They start on their bottom, then they are up on their knees, then they are standing on the their chair, then sitting on their bottom but backwards, then standing next to their chair, then half sitting half standing… I imagine it’s pretty difficult to avoid making a mess when eating a meal in that manner!
Boys are daring. They generally don’t look before they leap. One of my cousin’s three boys is recovering from injuries acquired during an incident in which he thought he could fly. The other day I watched one of the boys at my five-year-old’s preschool clear four steps in an intentional flying leap to the concrete floor below. He proudly landed on his feet and promptly climbed back up for an attempt in which he clearly intended to surpass his previous accomplishment (there was an intervention before that attempt got off the ground). Though we have avoided any serious injuries in our house thus far, I’ve witnessed this daring spirit in my own boys’ play. They often approach their activities and projects with little thought, let alone concern, of the potential for negative outcomes or consequences. They just joyfully forge ahead and wait to see what happens. Sometimes they get hurt; sometimes mom gets mad. Other times nothing significant or special happens so they do it again; this time testing the limits and pushing a little further.
Boys are hunters. They seem hard wired to focus on a specific task and to do so with intensity and great dedication until it is complete. Last summer my boys played a game that involved walking back and forth between sandbox and kiddie pool and filling each with the contents of the other using a variety of tools. They usually did this for about twenty to thirty minutes and without speaking a single word to each other. They would travel the twenty yards between the two destinations, back and forth, passing each in total silence and with an energy conveying that they were all completely aware of and tuned into the goal. And even though I couldn’t tell you what they accomplished (because nothing was visibly apparent to me when the activity ended other than two huge piles of wet sand), at some point the work was done. I don’t know how they knew it, but they did, and they just stopped and moved on to the next thing as silently and knowingly as they had just been playing. And what they moved onto next wasn’t always silent. No! Hunter-type play can have a very quiet quality. On the other hand, some of their play is incredibly loud! Another of my boys’ favorite activities involves throwing lots and lots of toys and other things down the stairs or behind the couch or down the laundry chute at my parents’ house. This is usually, for a reason not known to me, a very loud job.
Part 5
Boy Energy & the Male Brain
Boys are not all of these things all of the time. Neither are girls not these things, or the complete opposite all the time. For example, each of my sons can be less messy and rather neat; less daring and more cautious. It’s important to me to embrace and support each of my children as individuals with entirely unique perspectives, journeys and “ways of being” in the world. To be sure, generalizations can threaten our ability to see people as individuals, and even influence a person’s expression of their genuine “self” outside of often resulting stereotypes. The intention is to convey that my experiences have shown a certain current of underlying tendencies to be so strong and so hard wired in my boys that they are hard to ignore. As a parent committed to understanding my children as individuals I was in danger of ignoring what they had in common with each other and boys everywhere. There is much knowledge to be gained by also seeing them as part of a group with specific predispositions, and it was an eye opening and revealing day when I acknowledged this truth.
Part 6
Comin Soon...
