Unmanlike

We watched Singin' in the Rain together recently, and the kids loved it. Aaron in particular has re-enacted the "Make 'Em Laugh" scene a hundred times. He clearly loves the slapstick vaudeville dancing as much as the singing. He has always loved to dance; for example, he got up on stage to imitate the hula dancers in Hawaii, and danced the night away at our 70s birthday party. So I asked him about it.

Me: This year you are going to learn a lot of music, with both piano and choir.

Aaron: I am already a very good singer.

Me: You are. You have a good voice and you have a good ear. so that when you hear a song, you can sing it back very well. 

Aaron: Yep.

Me: I am wondering about another thing, because you also love to dance, right?

Aaron: I do! [Does a little dance right on the spot.]

Me: Not right away, but someday, do you think you would want to take some dance lessons, too? Along with the music?

Aaron: Well no I don't think so. Because I think that would be unmanlike. 

Me: Oh, but there are lots of dancers who are men who are fantastic. 

Aaron: Like Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor!

Me: Absolutely. And lots of other men. If you ever wanted to do dance lessons, we would make sure that you got lessons that are good for boys.

This has got me thinking about several things, including how strongly gendered dancing is. I think this is a shame, I wish it wasn't the case, and will do what I can to undermine the stereotype by offering examples of awesome dancing men. But Aaron is right: In our society dancing is mostly for girls. 

Another thing I notice is that Aaron feels very strongly about participating in activities that match his gender identity, which is way, way over on the boy side of the gender spectrum and always has been. (So is Jordan's.) This is a little trickier. As a woman in physics (among other things), I want to especially encourage people to engage in rewarding activities regardless of those activities' gender baggage. However, at Aaron's age, I am concerned that if I try to get him to pursue activities that he knows to be girly, he might misunderstand me as disrespecting his gender identification. Acceptance isn't less important for those whose birth gender, bodies, and personal identity all match. He's not saying he wishes he could do dance lessons but can't because he's a boy; he's telling me he doesn't want to do dance lessons because that would not match his gender identity. I realize this is a pretty fine line. For now I'm just keeping my eye on it.

Yet another thing, in which the philosophical meets the pragmatic, is how we recognize and nurture our kids' unique talents and desires. Of course, I want to do so. However, I do not believe that any kid has One True Talent and if we fail to cultivate it we're letting him down. At least not usually. I think that a normal kid has a bunch of little baby possible talents, and when one of those aligns with some high-quality education, it blossoms. I think that we parents should not feel guilty about choosing to pursue certain of our kids' talents for practical reasons -- because there's a good teacher of that thing nearby, or you already own that instrument, or your kid has friends who are doing that thing. I plan to be satisfied with making some pretty good matches between talent and training, ones that are satisfying for the kid and sane for the family. Thus, Aaron starts in choir and piano, because our family has a good thing going with both of those already. We will see if this turns him on the way it has turned Jordan on, and I will keep the dancing in mind.

Later we had this other conversation, about a Disney movie we are watching:

Aaron: In Tarzan is there a real actor who does those great tricks and moves?

Me: No. Those moves are only in the drawings. The actor who does Tarzan's voice stands still while he says the words.

Aaron: Oh.

Me: But I did hear an interview once with the guy who did the drawings for the Tarzan movie [Disney master animator Glen Keane], and he said who he was copying who does those kinds of moves in real life. Would you like to know?

Aaron: Yes!
Me: Surfers and skateboarders. Surfers go sliding on waves like Tarzan slides around on the trees, and skateboarders go flying in the air when they do their tricks. 

Aaron: Oh yeah like when they fly up high and grab their board and maybe even go upside down! [He started leaping around to illustrate.]

This got me thinking about other disciplines that use the body for artistry and entertainment, like gymnastics. That's not convenient for us either, to be honest, and it's also fairly girly -- probably not as girly as dancing, but not as masculine as skateboarding, for sure. There is a skate park right near our house...