The scene was typical. Your average Sunday pub lunch featuring a bunch of hungover parents and their children. The adults were wild-eyed, exhausted, defeated – yet still desperate to appear in charge. The children were crazed. Or, rather, half of them were. The girls were sitting quietly and drawing. The boys were on a table brandishing cutlasses (OK, cutlery) and taking it turns to launch themselves to the floor, where they died magnificently, like tiny Game of Thrones extras. The gender stereotypes playing out before my eyes were off the scale.
I was heavily pregnant with a boy of my own – a boy who, when he came out, would be nothing like these mini alpha males. I was convinced of this in the way that only someone who hasn’t yet had a child can be. My boy would be different. For a start, he would have two mothers. Two lefty feminist mothers into gender-neutral clothing and MGM musicals for all. There would be no father around to reinforce some fixed idea of masculinity, no matter how positive. No daddy to disappear off to work after a fortnight’s paternity leave, throw him in the air when he needed a cuddle, or freak out when he pushed a buggy with a doll strapped into it. Instead, there would be a double dose of femininity. Softness. There would be tights.
Fast forward two years and my son is here. And boy, oh boy is he a boy. In the purest, simplest, crudest sense. His first word was bus. His favourite things are sticks, stones, diggers, balls, steering wheels, and Thomas the Tank Engine, which is just as sexist as it was when I was growing up, only now in CGI. He only stops moving when strapped down. Give him a doll and he will try to spin it. He actually recorded Match of the Day recently, which was a fluke, but still … the child isn’t even two. For those who are concerned about what the new generation of boys growing up without fathers might look like, or what “damage” might be done to a six-month-old baby boy dressed in hot-pink tights, I present my son. Gloriously, confoundedly, mysteriously male.
How to raise a son is a hotly debated subject. Entire bookshelves are devoted to it, while girls, the ones born into a world pitted against them, tend to get lost in the pinkification debate. The reinforcement of traditional male gender starts even while the baby is brewing in your belly. “Don’t expect to sit down for the next five years.” “At least you won’t have to worry about tantrums.” “Boys are so much better than girls!” (said to someone who was once a girl). There are scientific studies, threads on Mumsnet, and at least one classic text on the subject. Raising Boys, by child psychologist Steve Biddulph, which coined DDD (Dad Deficiency Disorder), claimed that “to become a good man, you have to know good men”, and sold millions of copies.
Meanwhile more of us are bringing up boys without men, whether by choice or necessity. Nine out of 10 of the 1.9 million one-parent families in Britain are headed by women. Presumably around half of them have sons. That’s around a million boys being brought up by women as the main carer. And the number of same-sex parents in the UK is growing fast. In 2010 there were 8,000 and by 2013 that figure had shot up to 12,000. Although we don’t know how many of these are women, the figure must be proportionately higher; it’s not easy for two women to have a baby but it’s even harder for two men.
Yet still the received wisdom, first perpetuated by Freud, is that a boy needs a father in order to become a man. A boy with a mother, much less two of them, is more often pitied than praised. He will be fatherless, feminised, bullied. He might turn out to be gay. This prejudice masquerading as concern is directed not just at gay parents but all women. The underlying message? Mothers aren’t enough.
Studies are beginning to suggest otherwise. Most famously, Peggy Drexler, a psychology professor at Cornell University, published Raising Boys Without Men in 2006 following 10 years studying American families without fathers. She found not only that a boy’s masculinity can be cultivated without a father but that boys being brought up by women often fare better than boys growing up in nuclear families.
I’m not sure about that either. The vast majority of us, in whatever configuration, are just doing our best not to bring up arseholes. Most of us worry we’re not enough. And what so many people fail to acknowledge when talking about same-sex parenting is that no two women (or men) will represent their gender in the same way. My partner – the one who didn’t give birth, went back to work after two weeks, and incidentally has a really good throw – is probably more of a “dad” than I am. We may be two mothers but we are subject to the same influences, pressures, and mores as the rest of society. And I do feel sad that my son will grow up without a live-in father, not because he will be taught to throw by a woman, but because a good dad is a great thing for sons and daughters. Just like a good mum.
It turns out my job is not to turn my son into my idea of what a man can be, but to help him become himself. This is both easier and harder than I thought. Sometimes I look at him and wonder whether he was dreamt up by mainstream society rather than two women. Mostly, and here’s what really surprises me, I just revel in his masculinity. Love his male gaze. Can’t wait for the next episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. What the hell is going on?
