Bad Parent: The Little Man
I wanted a girl, but I got a boy - and how.
by Ondine Galsworth
May 29, 2008
My son's name was Ava in utero until twenty-four weeks. Everyone said it was a girl: the ultrasound technician, the psychic and the prenatal yoga teacher. I was ecstatic about having a girl. It's what the baby's father and I both wanted — sweet Ava, our delicate flower.
Then the amnio gave us the real news: no genetic defects, a healthy son.
I was in the frozen foods section in the supermarket when I got the news. I called my baby's father immediately, sobbing hysterically, feeling guilty that I wasn't just relieved that my fetus was all right. "He's healthy, he's fine, but our daughter is a he!" Now we were both crying — mostly from relief and confusion and all those crazy emotions that come with the first bunch of months of pregnancy waiting to see if everything is okay, but also in mourning for the daughter we thought we were having.
Perhaps to punish us for naming him Ava as a zygote, my son Boone was born about as dainty as the Marlboro Man. The nurse said he had the neck strength of a three-week-old. Right away, when infants are only supposed to have a little bit in the bottle, he pounded down six ounces at a time like it was a Coors Lite. He never spit up. He was an eating machine. Instead of losing weight the first week like most babies, he gained a pound. At two months, the babysitter started calling him the man-baby.
My son was born about as dainty as the Marlboro Man.
Now, at a year and a half, he gets what I call his "work face" on as he takes the filter out of the vacuum empties it in the garbage, puts it back, replaces the cover and then proceeds to vacuum. I say, "I get it, you are a boy."
But he continues to reassert his masculinity. He's like an advertisement for maleness, sort of like a peacock, except at this stage of the game he displays his testosterone by running at top speed into furniture, swan-diving off the table, getting a bloody lip every other day. In fact, he is so covered in scrapes and bruises I had to ask the doctor not to call child protective services. I explained that I do not beat my child; he just falls his way through the day. She commented, "Wow, he really is beat up, but he's high energy. It's what boys do."
Boys also, apparently, yell. Shortly after my son's first birthday, he came up with a new sound — screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs. Its loudness can only be compared to sounds heard outside of the city — like, say, the Serengeti, where fearsome fanged creatures bellow and then tear into the soft warm underbelly of an impala.
There's shaking and roaring and hurling of objects, followed by a burning hate in his eyes as I pry him away from any dangerous electrical equipment. He stands in the hall, looking quite fierce in just a diaper, hands clenched into fist, elbows out, legs in half a squat. He's got the whole silver back gorilla thing down pat. After surveying the territory, avoiding any eye contact with me, he starts to lift up his arms, tilts his head back and roars: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
©2008 Ondine Galsworth and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Ondine Galsworth is working on a novel about her experiences as a go-go dancer
and a book about her new addiction, the rodeo. A New York native, she now lives in
New Jersey.
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