I was never too eager to be a boy mom. Watching my friends with their boisterous sons, I always felt a sense of gratitude to have had two girls.

The idea of raising a boy – from choosing his clothes, to cutting & styling his hair (not that I had figured out how to do up the girls’ hair yet), changing diapers would be much different than what I was used to. And then there was the fear of emotional distance I associated with boys. Could I guide him well enough to grow up to be a kind man, unlike so many men I’d known?

It’s easy to blame the mom when a man acts unkindly towards another, while a woman naturally is held accountable for her actions. So, was this response I was having to considering having a son based on a sense of selfishness and fear of accountability on my part? Guess that should have disqualified me just the same right?

I mean, I didn’t think I could do it. And I didn’t want that kind of responsibility on my shoulders. So, as much as I was nudged at considering having a third, just to try for a son, I wasn’t wavered or tempted to do so. My stubbornness held strong.

Until I got pregnant again. I was so certain that it would be a girl. Again. I was a girl mom. I can’t get down and dirty. I lived in ignorant bliss toward the gender of the baby for most part of my pregnancy, as I was in India and gender disclosing is illegal there.

A week before my due date, I learned I was having a boy. What? Why? How? But? Too many questions clamoured within my head trying to be heard.

My next growth spiral – this is what I termed it as and justified the occurrence.

It may sound funny now, but can you imagine that the thing that terrified me the most was thinking of how I’d change his diaper safely – what if I hurt him, what if he peed in my mouth?! Ugh! Why was this happening?

My heart raced with so many questions – what if I couldn’t do this? What if I failed him?

As is usual with women I guess, I worried that I’d have to figure it all out on my own and conveniently forgot he had a dad that he shared a gender role with who could help me. It took me some getting used to, some scares, but I eventually learned. (Plus, his dad did most of the nappy changes this time around :P). I figured out how to get him clothes that suited him more than it did his sisters. I figured out how to get his hair cut. And all of the other things he needed me to learn to do for him.

I realized that I’d always seen his sisters as two separate children, with their own personalities and their own favourite colours & styles and preferences and adding one more to that wasn’t as hard as I’d imagined.

Moreover, who knew that this little boy with his tender hugs and constant affection would melt my heart, like he did? He convinced me that all my past fears were misplaced.

But whoever said boys shouldn’t cry and boys are not built to emote clearly manipulated men to become insensitive by forcing this principle on them. At this stage, I sometimes wonder my little “boy” may even do it better than the girls do. He isn’t distant or unemotional.

His empathy for his sisters, his way of comforting them (even when he is the one that caused them pain), taught me so much. He has a temper, but so do the girls. More than being an amazing brother, he tries to be a good sibling to his sisters. And that’s taught me something important – I’m not alone in trying to raise my son. We’re all raising each other, looking out for the other and showing up. And that’s what really matters. And that’s what will count as they grow up, to be better adults.

This is the kind of accountability that I need to hold myself to while raising my children – the boy & the girls. Every child is born into the world with a petri dish of emotions and personality traits. As they grow up, the responsibility lies on us to let them know that their emotions are not wrong and that it’s okay for them to feel – and to respect that in others. Instead of enforcing them to suppress those emotions that come to us naturally, such as the instinct to care and empathize, we must guide them to understand and express these feelings.

This is all we can do as parents. We can guide the reins they hold, but we cannot take those reins from them when we’re scared, confused or angered. We can learn to watch them grow and grow alongside them.

Here’s an image of me & my little man on the day he was born – 9th October 2021.

Love always,