My son is quite the character. At five years old, he already has the great sense of humor and dashing personality that I acquired during puberty. It is refreshing to see him embrace who he is at such a young age, and he makes no apologies for his larger-than-life nature. Sometimes it is hard to believe he is only in kindergarten.
As a mother, I have really tried to cultivate his odd personality rather than force him to conform to the norms expected of a little boy. I wanted him to be who he is meant to be, not who society wanted him to be. So this meant letting him play with baby dolls, buying a deluxe Barbie playhouse, and encouraging him to shake what his momma gave him.
Shortly after starting kindergarten, I saw my son "flirting" with a sweet, blonde girl in the school pick-up line. (I use the term "flirting" loosely, because he is only five!) So as we walked to the car, hand-in-hand, I asked if he had any "girlfriends" at school.
"Yeah! I have three girlfriends: Madison, Taylor, and Jordan," he told me, matter-of-factly, without looking up.
I start jokingly giving him a lecture about how he is only allowed to kiss his mom and that he better not be kissing any girls at school. As I buckle him in his carseat, he reassures me that he won't and then drops a bomb on me. "I have a boyfriend at school, too!" he nonchalantly mentions.
Now, I understand that we are talking about five year old's who may-or-may-not understand terms such as "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" in the actual context. But it still really caught me off guard for him to talk about having a "boyfriend", and my first instinct was to tell him that boys don't have boyfriends. I started to form a speech in my head as I closed his door and got in the drivers seat. He just needed me to explain the difference between "friends" and "boyfriends".
Then I remember what it felt like to grow up thinking that you had to be a certain way. You had to wear dresses and like boys and get good grades and be polite and stay thin and not deviate from what everybody else was doing around you. I looked at my little boy in the back seat, and I didn't want to ever make him ashamed for being himself. No matter what.
Still in the school's parking lot, I turned around and gave him a huge smile. "No kissing boys either, mister!' I told him. He giggled and did the typical sigh and "Okay, mom" that you would expect from a teenager. We carried on with our day as if nothing was wrong with him having a boyfriend, and I was really proud of myself.
However, I know that not everybody feels the way I do. In the rural area that we live, people don't really accept those who are considered "different", and their disapproval usually passes on to their children. My classmates teased and bullied a boy so badly for being gay that he stopped coming to school. As a parent, I never want my child to have to endure that type of pain, but it becomes hard to know which is the lesser of two evils: do you let your child hide who they are or get tormented by other kids?
For now, I am just happy and proud to have a sweet, charismatic little boy who knows no matter what, his momma loves him. And that is enough.
