I had lunch with Natalie today, and she got me thinking about raising boys. This mulling led me to finally crack open a book that Elizabeth Newman suggested months ago. I only read about 30 pages of It’s a Boy! but I am already choking back tears. The introduction cites four things you should do to effectively parent your boy (though these are obviously true, with different nuances, for a girl):
1. Accept the reality that boys are different from girls
2. Love the end product of boyhood, namely, a man
3. Appreciate your child’s uniqueness (individuality trumps gender)
4. Surrender your expectations of “making a man” of your boy
In the section about (2) Thompson talks about imagining the man your child will become and I instantly felt that hollow pressure in my chest and prickling in my eyes. I don’t even have words for these thoughts which bubble up whenever I think in a big picture way about My Children and Parenting. My God, is there a deep and turbulent sea of emotion just under the surface when it comes to Grace and Whit. Beneath my wild oscillations from joking playmate to screaming harpy to patient listener to short-and-snappy critic … well, underneath that motley mix of moods and personalities are depths of feeling that I simply don’t know yet how to put into words.
I think I’ll return to my King memoir now, feeling a little drained and distracted. Perhaps I will start with Elle magazine, actually.