My Biggest Fear in Raising a Boy

Even though I have more experience raising and being around boys, I feel infinitely less prepared to handle this than I did when I thought I was having a girl. To some extent, I am afraid of having a boy.

So what am I going to do? Even admitting this will make some people raise their eyebrows and mutter "ungrateful." But being judged isn't making them go away. It just makes me feel belittled. For now, I can put aside most of my fears. A lot of them are petty, and I may not have to deal with them at all, so worrying about them now is silly. But there is one fear that nags at me.

I worry that he will make me feel stupid.

Ever since I was little, men have been putting me down and making me feel inferior. Male teachers made jokes at my expense when I didn't understand material. Male friends enjoy humiliating me for a laugh. Even men in my family, including a nephew who used to adore me, tend to use that incredulous voice when they talk to me - the one that plainly indicates that they can't believe they're talking to such an idiot.

I can't even convince myself that he wouldn't do that to his mommy. I know just as many boys who think their moms are idiots as I do boys who think their moms hung the moon. My odds are not good. If friends and family already think I'm stupid, he's going to pick up on it. If he ridicules me and anyone laughs at it, his behavior will be reinforced. Then what do I do? Once it starts, if it starts, how do I stop it?

And how do I stop feeling like this? Feeling like I need to be guarded against a baby now because of how he might behave when he gets older?

Sibling Rivalry

My sister-in-law is due three days before me. I should be elated. In my family, I never had cousins to play with because they were all 10 or more years older than me. My baby will have a playmate on every family vacation, and share a birthday with someone who could potentially be his best friend, especially since she's expecting a little boy too.

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But I'm not really that excited about it.

I've been asked if I would be jealous about my baby sharing a birthday with a neighbor's newborn or a celebrity's baby, and I don't think that's fair at all. My in-laws didn't tell me that they might miss the birth of our first-born because some random person is having a baby. If they miss it, it'll be because they decided to be with their daughter and her children ... and probably because they live closer....

I shouldn't be so judgmental. I know the car ride between their town and our city is unpleasant, totaling more than 300 miles. We've made the trip about once a month so far, so I know very well how disheartening it can be to get in the car and know you're going to spend a quarter of your day there.

Sometimes I also worry about the effect their son will have on mine. Judging from my nephew, her first (and until now only) child, this new boy will be raised to be a rough-and-tumble sort of boy. That's pretty much the opposite of how Mark and I behave, and probably the opposite of how our boy will behave too. Will family vacations be spent drying my son's tears because his cousin shoved him again, or called him a sissy because he wouldn't play-fight with him? When I pick him up from Nanny and Papa's house after spending time with his cousin, will we have to help him unlearn aggressive behavior?

Of course, it's just as likely that my son will be the terror that will give my sister-in-law grief. She may be the one who has to remind her son for the umpteenth time that "we do not hit!" after he spends time with my son. Our son might spend more of vacation in time-out because he was bullying his cousin. We won't know for a few more years, so there really isn't any point in speculating about it now.

Besides, there may be no problems at all.

My Disappointment with Craft Wars

Let's talk about Craft Wars; more specifically, my problem with it.

Before I climb on my soapbox, I want to say that I do admire what the crafters come up with in spite of the time constraints and odd challenge materials. It is a reminder that I should not limit myself on what I can do because of time or resources. I just have to think a little more creatively.

My problem starts when I see just how much stuff is in the challenge materials. It's always new, and there is always lots of it. In the very first episode, the master craft was to create a playhouse out of school supplies. Having taught in a district where the majority of families couldn't afford all of the supplies on the school list, I watched with a furrowed brow while composition notebooks were ripped apart for wallpaper and brand new pencils were sawed down for accent pieces. Other viewers shared my concerns too. "Yeah, that looks really great, but there are lots of children and schools that could have actually used those supplies."

It happens every week. A slew of comments appear, mentioning all sorts of places and charities that could have benefited from the challenge materials that were used on the show. I know that whoever is in charge of coming up with challenges and materials can't change it now since the episodes have already been filmed, but I do hope that if the show is renewed for another season that they are a little more mindful of the fact that there are people who are in need of this equipment, and that no crafter is going to have 60+ boogie boards at his or her disposal to build a lounge chair.

The "Heavy Metal" episode was really got to me. I hadn't been able to watch Craft Wars the last two Tuesdays due to being away from home, but when I got home just before midnight last night, I was able to catch the episode from last week. When they wheeled out the paint cans for the master craft challenge, I wasn't bothered. Then they brought out instruments. Perfectly decent, brand new, shiny instruments to smash and break apart so the competitors could build (in my opinion) a stupid sculpture for the Grammy museum. Let me interrupt myself here and say that I don't think the sculptures themselves were stupid. The ideas and construction were clever, and I applaud both contestants for their creativity and ingenuity. What made me beyond angry is that they had to destroy music instruments or face losing the contest and $10,000.

My husband was a band director at the same school where I taught elementary music and art. Those same students who couldn't afford all of their school supplies definitely could not afford instrument payments. So who purchased them? We did, with our budgets, and if we needed something else for our classrooms, we bought it with our own money. We learned how to make basic repairs to instruments to save our students' and our school's money. To see instruments that could have been used by that band program being used so frivolously ... I am just infuriated.

When will Craft Wars stop asking their contestants to make paltry projects for the sake of making something, and start giving them resources that another person/organization isn't in desperate need of? When will they ask their contestants to do something that matters?

That One Guy

Surely I'm not the only one who has experienced this? The one guy who, when you see that you two are scheduled for the same shift, makes you groan to yourself. He (or she) probably doesn't ruin your life, or even your day, but that brief period at work is less enjoyable just because that person is around.

That One Guy is might be someone who always has a problem that no one could ever understand and there's no solution to it, so don't even try to be rational because she doesn't want to hear it. Or That One Guy might be the rude person who keeps making jokes at the expense of others and doesn't realize he is the only one laughing. That One Guy might even be a sort of "holier than thou" kind of guy: the only one who knows how to do anything around here and is always "doing you a favor."

Yeah. Being rude to me is really doing me a favor.

Fortunately for me, this is the kind of guy I can forget pretty easily between shifts. I couldn't at first, as my husband will tell you, but eventually I got to where I could get over him like I get over colds: with lots of rest and relaxation. (Occasionally a stiff drink was needed in the beginning also.)

Tonight was my last night of work for good - or at least until well after the baby is born. It was a pretty ordinary night, save the fact that I had to work with That One Guy. But you know what? I don't have to do that ever again. And that, my friends, is awesome.