When I found out I was having a son I had this preconceived notion that rowdiness was learned. Rowdy boys watched WWE re-runs all day and had no discipline or structure in their life.
I would never have a rowdy boy. He would always be polite. He would love sports – especially football – but would never tackle or be tackled. That’s mom logic. He would never dream of playing with pretend guns, ninja wrestle-mania smack down, or scale my refrigerator with the ease of Spiderman.
He would definitely never challenge me, his mother, to a sword fight.
He is a boy though, and at times a rowdy boy. He experiments with good and evil. He takes our family on adventures we never otherwise would have through black holes and lava lands. Our floors have been perpetually flooded or lava-laden forcing us to carry him through the depths of imaginary despair, dragons, zombies but always end with him as the victor.
My son is as sweet as he is rowdy. When he is done sword fighting, and leaping through mine fields he crawls into my bed with his “ninight”. He will ask me after circle time if we can snuggle and play zombies when we get home. He also plays gently with dolls and stuffed animals.
Boys have a hard stigma to live through. They are frowned upon when they are too rowdy, and frowned upon when too soft. Our sons are rowdy, sweet and exactly who they need to be. Why do we feel we need to force a cookie cutter set of traits and behaviors to our sons and not just let them (safely!) be who they are?
