A Positive She-Male Role Model

I didn't post last week; it's been that special kind of busy that happens when your spouse is away.

It's not just the lack of another pair of grown-up hands. What's particularly trying is the emotional toll on the kids, who miss their dad and have an upset routine.

My kids seem to sit in a persistent malaise when their dad is away for long. They inevitably become fascinated with other guys around them—usually manly guys doing manly things. Guys doing construction work, stocking product at the local grocery store, fixing the road, pruning trees.

This time, they slouched around watching a carpenter we've hired to fix our front porch. They asked him questions about his circular saw, how many kids he has, and whether he had built them a tree house.

When a painter came over to do an estimate, my son, who is three, hugged his leg and wouldn't let go.

But it wasn't until one particular morning that I really understood, in the most visceral way, a boy's need for a male role model.

After I saw my girls onto their school bus, I had about 45 minutes to kill with my son until his preschool began.

Let's be ambulance drivers,” he said. This is a game we sometimes play when we're walking somewhere, just to pass the time. He pretends to turn on flashing lights and drives me, the other ambulance driver, as we try to figure out what to do about--as my son puts it-- “the guy in the back with his leg broke off.”

When playing the ambulance driver game, my son finds it necessary for both of us to speak in deep, masculine, ambulance-driver voices.

This time, we played for a bit but soon I got bored. Plus, my vocal chords were feeling a little strained with all the man-talk. I decided we'd go for a coffee.

It was crowded in the coffee shop, and my son was getting a little restless. We got to the front of the line and I ordered a coffee for me and hot chocolate for him—in my normal voice, of course.

“NO!” shouted my son. “We're AM-bulance drivers!”

“It's a game we play,” I said apologetically to the cashier, who smiled weakly, then lifted her eyes to the next customer. We moved down the counter to wait for our drinks.

“You know,” I said to my son. “There are lots of girl ambulance drivers.”

“No!” he said. He seemed to be gathering steam, but then our order came.

I now had two hot drinks to pick up, one in either hand.

“Thank you,” I said politely to the barista. Then I turned to my son and offered him his drink.

"Here's your hot chocolate," I said in that saccharine, placating voice that panicked moms get when they're trying to ward off a meltdown.

“No!” shouted my son. “It's COFFEE!" 

"Ambulance drivers drink hot chocolate," I said, completely missing the point. 

"Say AM-bulance driver words!” commanded the mini dictator.

Crying and totally frustrated, he dropped to the floor.

Here was my choice. In a packed coffee shop, I could speak to my son in a deep, macho voice, or I could let him continue to scream and go floppy, put down the coffees, pick him up and leave.

I think it's testament to just how badly I wanted that coffee: I chose the voice.

“Come on,” I boomed gruffly. “Let's go check on our truck.” I think I even spoke out of the corner of my mouth.

“Yeah,” said my son, smiling through tears. And we swaggered out of there together as ambulance drivers—one of them a pint-sized coffee drinker and the other a sort of confused man-mom.

Hallowe'en

We have been blessed with a daughter who has always loved simple costumes. Princess, vampire, spider, zombie. Her little sister is even easier—she always wants to be what big sister was the previous year.

Then there's our son.

“I want to be a school bus,” he declared when I asked him, two weeks ago, what his costume would be. My reaction: despair. Though I did look forward to getting mildly high again from the spray paint, I still had nerve damage and Popeye forearms from cutting cardboard boxes last year, when he was a monster truck. (With scissors, of course. Finding the X-acto knife? Needle in a haystack.)

“Maybe he'll change his mind,” I thought. A couple days later, he did.

“Merman,” he said that morning. He had put two feet into one pant leg, a makeshift fish tail. “I want to be a merman.”

Unconventional, perhaps, but doable. No boxes, no paint fumes. I was optimistic. It wouldn't take much to make our lavender-and-turquoise sequined Ariel costume a little more boyish. If not, we'd do it up—a wig, full makeup. A three-year-old boy in mermaid drag would be adorable. The grownups would shower him with candy—half of which I would later stash for myself, of course. It could be a banner year.

But that night, all hope was lost.

“I want to be a streetcar,” he said, and before I could confuse or distract him out of it, he flashed a wide, sparkly-eyed, “you-can-do-it, Mom” grin. Who was I to crush his dreams? He only got one Hallowe'en as a three-and-a-half-year-old.

I set to work making a fucking streetcar costume. 

I cut thick cardboard with dull scissors. I spray painted boxes. I actually did this two days in advance, to allow the paint to dry. In my distracted rush I painted the boxes on our deck, and got red spray paint on it. I made a towering, unwieldy box costume that my son—bless him—thought was awesome. My girls also got into it and painted him a steering wheel and dashboard radio--so he could drive while listening to top 40 hits.

The costume sat in our dining room for two days, during which time I constantly fended off my son for fear of my own shoddy construction.

"Stay away!" I shouted. "The sides need more duct tape!"

"Don't touch it!" I said. "The roof will come off!"

In the end, he didn't want to wear it to school, for fear the other kids might want a turn in it and break it. On Hallowe'en night, the cumbersome ensemble barely allowed him to walk, let alone to make it up the stairs to a neighbor's house, without teetering over. He lasted about 15 minutes. Once back in our yard he left his meager loot on the ground and proceeded to do what he had wanted all along: to play in the damn thing.