On Friday morning, I discovered the remains of my favorite duck, Maple, in our poultry coop. I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pretty.
As soon as I saw the scene, I knew the raccoon was back, because they leave a certain unmistakable type of carnage.
Like, a fox would never.
My husband dragged out the ol’ live trap and baited it with cat food, crossing our fingers and hoping we’d catch the bastard. Partly because we have to protect our birds, and partly, I think, to avenge Maple’s death on my behalf.
Previously, we’ve only ever caught neighborhood cats lured in by the promise of dinner (again: live trap! no cats were injured, just annoyed). So I wasn’t overly optimistic about nailing our perp.
On Saturday morning, I took my first sip of coffee and looked out the kitchen door to the coop. And, damn, there was a big raccoon in there. 🦝
My Masculine Son
As much as it pained me to do it, we did what good farmers do: Dispatched the predator instantly and painlessly.
My 5-year-old son, “Biscuit,” knows the drill. He’s a Montana boy raised to be a steward of the environment and a responsible consumer of meat. He wears a pocket knife on his belt, drives a John Deere, and idolizes the bull riders at the Western Montana Stampede Rodeo.
Girls can do any of those things, too, of course, but my son seems to have popped out chock-full of testosterone, despite the fact that we made a deliberate effort to start his life as gender-neutrally as possible. By the time he could talk, he dismissed the dolls and my beloved Angelina Ballerina books, asking only:
“Dump trucks?”
As a proud feminist and self-proclaimed girls’ girl, I grapple with this on a regular basis. Where’s the line between hypermasculinity and toxic masculinity? And how will I know when we’ve crossed it?
Becoming A #BoyMom During #MeToo
I got pregnant during the #MeToo movement and found out I was having a boy around the time that Harvey Weinstein pled not guilty in his third sexual assault case.
I have to sheepishly admit that, as I listened to the trial proceedings and watched the Larry Nassar trial, I was deeply relieved that I was going to have a son whose male privilege might protect him from the rampant sexual harassment, violence, and assault that I had experienced.
I made a commitment to myself and to the baby in my belly that I would raise him to be emotionally aware, to be a protector, to be sensitive, and, maybe above all, to be a proud feminist. To use his privilege (as a white, male son of two educated parents) to speak out against inequality of all kinds.
Masculinity To Toxic Masculinity
My boy, he is sensitive and empathic. He’s thoughtful and caring. And he harvested a ground squirrel in our alfalfa field with a hand trowel, explaining simply that he wanted “meat for his family.” Like his daddy before him, he just naturally lands far to one side of the masculinity spectrum.
But this is nature and nurture, right? As his mother I feel it’s my duty to keep him from falling down the slippery slope of:
Masculinity ↓
Hypermasculinity ↓
Toxic masculinity ☠️
Toxic Masculinity
The first Biscuit he came home from school telling me he “didn’t like pink anymore” because it’s “for girls,” my heart dropped out of my chest. Was it a warning sign that he’d start thinking girls are lame? What would that mean for the rest of the women in his life? In his future?
Toxic masculinity means rejecting anything remotely feminine on the grounds that it makes you weak. It’s a narrow set of guidelines for boys’ and men’s behavior: Be tough, strong, stoic, aggressive, dominant. Anything else is gay.
Toxic masculinity is a pillar of the pillar of the patriarchy and it’s a breeding ground for misogyny and homophobia.
My son will adopt this mindset, like, over my dead body, so my husband and I started having conversations about this starting when Biscuit was in utero. And he idolizes his dad, who is a great example emotional intelligence and sensitivity. EL is the greatest influence on Biscuit’s behavior and mindset, far more than I can ever be.
So, from what sometimes feels like the sidelines, I monitor and cheer on displays of tenderness and masculinity without the toxicity. We have lots of family conversations about how emotions and gender and sexuality, because that seems like the best way to grow strong feminist roots in a little boy.
Feminist Boys
Feminism means advocating equality of the sexes: Politically, economically, and socially (intersectional feminism means advocating for equality of the sexes and equality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status).
Toxic masculinity and feminism are mutually exclusive, because toxic masculinity implies that femininity = bad and dominance = good.
How does one navigate the right amount of aggression in endless games of “dinosaur truck smash” and “ninja battle?” What’s the right amount? I have no idea.
None of the parenting books I’ve read have chapters on how to creatively steer a NERF war into a conversation about boundaries and how it’s okay to feel angry but how, yes, guns are super interesting, but we can never channel our emotions into a firearm. This is uncharted territory for me.
The Takeaway
This was all top of mind as Biscuit helped me mix up pancake batter and then went outside to help his dad skin the raccoon. He fleshed out the skull with his pocket knife with academic curiosity, so he could add it to his growing “natural history museum” of nature specimens in his bedroom.
When it was time to sit down for dinner — raccoon tacos — he asked for seconds. Out of respect for the animal and our family rule that we eat the meat we harvest, I choked mine down, but Biscuit really liked it (and asked for it in his lunchbox).
My contribution (besides beans, rice, and guacamole) was a reminder about how we never kill an animal unless it’s a threat or we’re going to harvest its meat (or, ideally, both).
Like I tell him at bedtime every night, Biscuit is strong. He’s brave. And kind, curious, fun, and deserving. And I am beginning to think that it will be my life’s greatest work to teach him how to harness all those things and be able to talk openly about his feelings without thinking it makes him a “wimp” (or, worse, a “p_ssy”).
For now, I guess, I will stay the course. And hope it doesn’t involve many more raccoon tacos. 🌮
Stay tuned for Raising My Masculine Feminist Son, Part 2.