Raising a boy: A Gender Response

By Sajana J on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - 17:26

So you are bringing up a boy in a gender sensitive manner at home. But does he have enough examples to follow as he grows older asks Sajana J.

Having just pulled out a one-rupee coin from my 16-month old son’s throat, I’ve begun to realise that “safely” is the primary way to raise boys. Or girls, for that matter. But clearly, there is more to raising a kid. Irrespective of whether it is a boy or a girl.  

Raising a boy who is happy and healthy is a tall order under most circumstances. Add to it the cultural pressures of what a boy should and should not do – play with cars, do not cry, be ambitious and stay away from the kitchen. This is however mostly opposite to what most women want from their male partners. We wish that men would not strangle themselves with their unexpressed emotions. We would appreciate if they spent less time with their gadgets or cars, and more with us. We do not want them to feel threatened about our professional success, and we certainly want them to help out in (or take over!) the kitchen.

As always though, stating that boys should be raised as people who believe in non-violence, respect women, and can independently cook a meal or wash their socks, is easier said than done. Children are constantly exposed to mixed messages about men, women and how they are expected to be from within our families, our communities, schools and the media. It becomes all the more confusing for kids to hear their parents talk one thing, and behave in the exact opposite manner. A mother who questions stereotypical “mama-papa” roles through words, but who ends up slogging in the kitchen alone after office while the father sits on the couch, can be utterly baffling.

Hence, the challenge is for us, as parents to demonstrate gender sensitivity through words and actions, for kids to emulate. So that concepts of equality do not remain platitudes, but something that does happen in real life.

Globally there has been a growing recognition of the fact that men have an equal role in changing gender inequalities. Unless men and issues of masculinity are questioned, debated, analysed and addressed, our dream of equality would remain a distant dream.  Beginning it at home, for me, seems to be one way of the effective ways of going about it.