Gender issues--they start early. Elspeth is still utterly unaware that she is female. At one year old, people are big or small, but they are all to be played with and smiled at, though Elspeth more readily trusts smaller people and has a distinct aversion to people with beards, male or female.
But at five, Merry is already very aware of gender and many of the things that go with it. Though we try hard never to ascribe roles to gender or typify boys or girls, Merry has figured a few things on her own.
Boys do not generally wear dresses. Despite the history I gave her on women's rights and how women had to fight to wear pants, Merry steadfastly refuses to wear anything but dresses. Boys and girls have different physical characteristics. Boys are often more physically rough than girls--Merry believes this beyond a doubt, since she has personal experience to back up this belief: she has been bitten, pushed, her hair pulled, jostled, etc.--almost entirely by boys. When she was just four, this history of violence made Merry immediately wary of boys, and if there were any on the playground, she hung back in terror and clung to me for dear life. We explained to her that many boys were gentle and fun to play with. She did not believe us.
Since then she's had a few key male friends, and she has started to trust the male race a little more. So much so that today when Martin picked her up from preschool, she announced she had made friends with Richard and Devin. Two boys, in point of fact.
Martin was pleased, and mentioned in the course of conversation, "Boys and girls sometimes play differently, don't they?"
"Yes," said Merry, "Because they have different bottoms." She was of course referring to the undeniable fact that boys have penises and girls have vaginas.
She has known this for a long, long time, way back when she was two. And then, when she was three, she started to make use of her knowledge. The following scene took place a year and a half ago in Iowa.
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My friend Amy and I sat at the table near the window, chatting over a book we had read, as her son Theo ate chalk and bobbed his head happily. Her four year old Simon and my three year old Merry sat on high stools at the breakfast bar, rolling play dough. Their voices suddenly raised to a high pitch:
“No, you don’t!” Merry yelled, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.
At intervals, Simon was grinning and then frowning in a perplexed way. “Yes, I do, Merry,” he murmured, studying a green piece of play dough plastered to his fingernail.
Merry put her chin in the air, smiling slyly. “No, you don’t,” she proclaimed again. She banged down a cookie cutter on the counter to emphasize her superior knowledge.
This exchange went on for some time. Amy and I paused our conversation, trying to understand what our two kids were ragging on about. Finally, Amy leaned toward me.
“I think Merry is telling him that he does not have a penis,” she said.
“Merry,” I yelled over my shoulder, “Simon does have a penis.”
Merry stopped mid-shout. “Oh,” she said, and shrugged. “Okay.”
Simon lowered his head to look at her. “I—I told you I had one,” he stuttered, relieved.
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When I was about eight, it occurred to me that babies had to come from somewhere, just as a cake emerged from mixing a certain set of ingredients. So I asked my father. I expected a facile answer.
My father was standing over the sink, cleaning his razor. He told me: “The daddy gives something special to the mommy.”
“How?” I pursued.
My father stopped talking, and a pregnant silence followed. Finally he said, “We’ll tell you soon.”
For a day, I imagined the most awful things I thought possible: does the mother eat something gross from the father? Do they exchange saliva? Nasty! I never guessed--I could never have guessed--the horrifying truth.
My mother broke sex wide open for me the next evening. I was in the bath with my two-year old brother. She explained, concisely and graphically, what baby-making was. I looked at her, a washcloth hanging limply in my hands, my face and insides contorted with disgust. Why would God make such a thing necessary in order for the creation of babies? The splashing of my naked brother suddenly sounded very loud in the quiet of our bathroom.
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Later in the car, Simon reviewed his conversation with Merry. First he reaffirmed the fact that he did indeed have a penis. And then Simon asked Amy: “So what does Merry have?”
His mother told him, and Simon asked what a vagina looked like. His mother struggled to explain, and after she had finished Simon was quiet for a moment. “Will Merry grow a penis?” he finally asked.
And on our end, Merry also continued the discussion. “Mommy,” she said casually, “Simon has a penis.”
“Yes, he does,” I said. “And what do you have?”
“A vagina,” she answered.
I am glad Merry knows the proper names for body parts, and it is natural she should notice differences between the bearers of those two body parts. All the same, I am glad to wait for a few years before Merry asks me for more specifics. The gender issues have started already, and it's early enough.
