How Do I Raise a Boy?

       As most of you likely already know....baby Poklar number 4 is a boy.  Yep, it's true...believe me, I made the ultrasound technician show me his little baby penis multiple times before I would actually believe it.  Also, as most of you probably know...this was exactly what I thought I wanted...a boy--the chance to raise at least one boy.  But, if I am being honest...I didn't experience euphoria upon seeing that little penis and hearing the baby called "him" throughout the ultrasound, but instead, I felt a rising tide of panic and uncertainty.
         Remember, I have had almost four years now to agonize over how to raise a girl in today's world....in addition to my own personal experience of being a female.  I have NO clue what it means to be a boy in today's world...or really, to be a boy, period.  To be honest, I don't really know what to do with a boy--and I don't mean the whole love them and feed them and meet their needs things--I mean I don't know what I picture a grown man in our 20 years in the future society looking like.  I don't know what to prepare him for, what traits to cultivate in his early years and which to try to temper.
          With my girls I know I want to raise them to be strong and independent, to capitalize on their intelligence and talents.  I know that I want that strength and independence to be tempered with a sense of justice and true caring for others.  I want them to have strong minds and soft hearts, to stand for what's right and speak out against the wrong.  I want them to have a strong sense of purpose and direction but the ability to questions themselves and their actions without falling to pieces.  I want them to openly love and laugh and live life fully--capable of protecting themselves, one another, and others from the world but not becoming hardened by it.  I KNOW--BIG hopes and dreams...but they are there...there is a clear way I want my girls to view the world and their place in it.
         However, I'm not sure this same type of placement makes sense for raising a boy--in an ideal society, yes...in today's...I don't know.  I fear encouraging too much softness or tempering too much strength.  I worry that in today's world there is so much push for young boys to be raised without being told to "man up" or "be a man" BUT then grown men are expected to do just that.  It seems that society sends mixed messages through media--both fictional and news coverage--regarding the role of a man in relationships.  I want my son to have strong and healthy relationships outside of the family, particularly as he reaches adolescence and young adulthood--but I don't really know what that ideal looks like from a male perspective and I fear girls of his generation will have biased and conflicting expectations based on society's suggestions.  I know I ideally want him to be much like what I described my girls...but I don't know how to get him there OR if that world view will make him an outsider, someone unable to connect with those around him in a meaningful way.
         I guess I have another four years or so to try to figure it out before I am "behind" on raising him.

       What are your thoughts?  What do you think it takes to "make" it in today's world?  Is it different for boys and girls/men and women?  What may we be losing when we attempt to either encourage or temper one trait or another?  How do you raise a boy to be both successful in the working world and in the realm of family and close relationships?  a girl?  Is equal always the same?

Be Illogical in your Definition of Who You Are

 Something I find myself wondering as an individual, a mother, and a professional is when is it that life or society begins to really squeeze or pressure children to "become" something.  What can parents do to halt, or limit, it?  When did I, as an individual, loose pieces of me that I wanted to keep?  What can I do as a professional to help teens and/or adults reclaim pieces of themselves or children maintain that sense of wonder or innocence, or spark of joy, for as long as possible?  Why is it that we, us grownups, are blase about the loss of this joy and wonder in our own lives?  Are we...let me rephrase that...am I...really that jaded?  How can I expect my daughters to maintain it if I can't hold onto it myself?

I love that my eldest runs into the room in a princess dress with a blanket cape and announces she is "Spiderman Princess Superhero" for the day and doesn't expect to be questioned about how those three fit together.  I love how my middle girl stubbornly insists she is a big girl when climbing the steps, refusing to hold an adults hand, but will cry for a bottle at nap time.  I dread the day when logic starts to play a defining role in how they view the world.  Granted, I want them to be able to navigate the world successfully...and that does require logical thinking...but I don't want them to lose the ability to make quick judgments based on feelings--to be led by their hearts to choose the harder or less traveled path--because it feels right.  I want them to believe they can be "Dancer Academic Rugby Player" or the teenage girl that still wants to hold her Daddy's hand--though these don't seem logical or "normal" in today's society--I want my girls to know its possible.  It is possible to be a strong young lady while also still being polite, it's possible to speak your mind without belittling others, it's possible to tackle the struggles in life while still being awed by the blessings.  It is possible to be so incredibly stressed by the everyday while still maintaining a joy in your place and your position in your family, your world, your life.  I want my girls to remember this and I want myself to remember this.  I may not be naive and innocent, but I can still find joy in the smile of my youngest and the incessant questioning/snuggling combo perfected at five a.m. by my just awoken oldest.  I can still find wonder in my middle girl's eyes as she touches my ever growing stomach and declares it is her baby, while I also feel the slightest movements of the life growing within me.  My life is filled with awe-inspiring and joy-sparking moments--I just need to be open and aware of them.  I need to stop falling into the "stressed grad student/mom routine" societal norms and play into my "Mommy Investigator Life-Savorer-and-Changer" role as complex and illogical as that may seem at times.

Yes, these roles countradict and yes, it is often impossible to be all of these at once...BUT, I'd rather be a sometimes failure in this new definition than a perfect example of the " Stressed and Tired Mom and Grad Student."  I refuse to view myself in that way.  I refuse to expect nothing more out of myself than mediocre, tired, and stressed parenting and academic pursuits.  And, I want more than anything in the world, my girls to grow up to define themselves, to choose how they view themselves, to not let others define them and the importance of their various traits to themselves and the world.  I want them to be willing to hold seemingly contradictory strengths and traits and to see the value in using both to define themselves and their roles in the world.  I want to support this, grow it, encourage it.  I hope to provide a model, an inspiration to them.  To show that perseverance, flexibility, passion are all important pieces to showing love for oneself and appreciation for one's own strengths and abilities--regardless of how others view those traits.

I challenge you to embrace the many parts of yourself that you hold dear and dare to be them all at the same time--dare to be illogical.  Dare to find the joy underlying your stress, the awe underlying your frustrations and dare to embrace those while letting the stress and frustration fall into a lesser role in your life.

Where is my motivation? Why do I need motivation?

I am about a month into semester 2 of the many, many (okay, roughly 12-14) I have to complete for my phd and I am already feeling like I am crawling towards the finish line.  Not such a great start, huh?  The truth is, I can't figure out what it is that has me so slowed down and unexcited.  I want to blame it on being pregnant...you know, exhaustion and all that jazz...and I'm sure that's part of it.  But, I think it may be something bigger....something harder to conquer.  I mean, at least with pregnancy, there is an end in sight...albeit very very far away.

No, I think it may be more along the lines of losing my belief in myself.  Somehow I've started to lose, tiny bit by tiny bit, my belief that this is all worth it.  That I will someday be the change I picture in my mind.  Somewhere along the way, I let self-doubt creep its way in and burrow back into its familiar place in my mind.  And, I am struggling to find the energy to push it back out. 

Aaron and I were talking the other day about people who are content with the status quo.  Those who never viewed themselves as doing anything more than living life--with no higher purpose, drive, or desire.  Sometimes, particularly recently, I wish I could be like that.  Live like that.  Ignorance is bliss.  If I never wanted anything more than what I had, I would be so content, so happy.  Let's be honest, I wouldn't know what I was missing...and, better yet, I wouldn't care. 

Yes, motivation and drive and passion and all that jazz leads to great things, incredible things.  IF you make it.  If not, you only see what you didn't get, you only know you reached high, but couldn't cut it.  If you had never thought to reach, then you wouldn't have missed.  I KNOW, I KNOW...pessimist, much?

I don't think it's really even that.  I think I'm scared.  I don't want to fail.  I don't want to have lived and dreamed only to say in the end I lived and failed.  I get the whole you have to fail to enjoy the victories and the importance of the drive and the passion.  I am just terrified that I'm not cut out for it....that I was never meant to dream this big, to reach this high.

Yet...here I am.  Here I am and I have three small, impressionable, curious, and innocent little girls watching my every move...and another child soon to join the ranks.  Do I want them to live ignorantly in bliss or do I want them to truly experience life--its ups and downs--and truly value that which they have...that which they have made for themselves?  As much as ignorance is bliss to those experiencing it...it is missing so much depth and color, so much love and laughter, so much heartache and growth, so much pain and pleasure.  I want to experience the full breadth of life.  I want my girls to experience not only all that life has to offer, but all that they can squeeze out of it.

And that...that is my motivation.  That is the small voice pushing back against self-doubt.  I will never know if I am cut out for it if I never try.  I will never make anything more out of myself than what I am at this moment, this second if I don't continue to push.  I won't continue to blaze a path of determination and drive for my girls to model if I don't keep moving forward.  I will fall and I will fail and I won't become the person I see in my mind...but, perhaps, just maybe, I will become something even better and encourage my girls to believe they can, too.

What path would you like your child to take?  What fears do you have regarding breaking out of the ignorance is bliss mode so common in today's society?