The science of parenting...

Before I had children I had some pretty strong beliefs about them, and now after almost 8 years and 4 kids I have to admit failure in my hypotheses.

The first being that society makes boys the way they are not biology. The old nature versus nurture. I have spent countless hours postulating the best way to approach a gender neutral upbringing for our children, and although I can freely admit that I have a son that is capable of telling you how he is feeling (beyond the cursory fine, well, etc) and 3 daughters that aren't capable of identifying any of the Disney princesses, there is much I have learned about genders that I can not fight millions of years of evolution on.

For instance, the other day I made a healthy tofu, broccoli kabob that could be eaten on the pool deck or at the tkd dojo. The end result a great healthy meal and lots of left over wooden spears. The three girls readily relinquished theirs when I asked, and in my naivety I never bother to count how many sticks went out versus how many sticks came back. Grayson took it upon himself to keep one of his and stashed it in the back seat of the minivan. A couple days later in a hustle to get the kids in the car off to the daily activities, the kids headed down to the garage moments before me. When I got to the car Eme, Anna and Neve were in their seats. Grayson was in his seat but manage to rediscover his "spear" and thought what a great opportunity to see how hard he would have to stab the seat in order to make it go in, and while at it why not see how fast I can do it too. I peak my head in to rapid stabbing of the leather seats, the three girls oblivious to the action busy chatting about webkinz or some such thing. Not a happy moment in the Dawes household, and I had to all but bite my tongue to not scream "what the h*ll are you doing?".

I am a bit sensitive to the gender thing as of late, as I often worry about Grayson. He is raised in a house with mostly women, has mostly girl cousins, and spends way more time with grandmas versus grandpas. My worry is not that he might be gay or feminine or along those lines but that he must feel a little bit like an alien. He actually tries really hard to do the right thing, but has these impulses that no one else around him has, resulting in him often getting blindsided by getting in trouble for something when he actually thought he was helping. Case in point. The car. Upon further discussions it turns out he started stabbing because he was feeling happy about the fact that he helped Neve get in her car seat, buckled Anna and then managed to get into his car seat all before I poked my head in the door. While buckled he noticed the stick, in his ebullient moment of "wow mom is going to be so proud of me" (kind of like the old bumble bee camp song), he decided to occupy himself in a celebration of sorts. I know some of you might be saying, yeah right, but honestly this is the way he thinks and gets hung up on a multi time a day process. I think in a family of boys he probably would blend in and much of it would be chalked up to being a boy. In a family of girls he looks like he can do no right.

I really feel for the guy and have been reading voraciously books about gender differences in an effort to get a better understanding of my ugly duckling, my Stellaluna, my black sheep(so to speak).

But the reality I have faced is nature is much stronger than nurture when it comes to boys (not even mentioning the pee incident).

The second hypothesis is that children in the same family really aren't that different, or if they are it was nurturing that made them this way versus some inborn personality traits. Again one of these areas that I strive to give my children the same exposure, same experiences, at least as much as I can. And although I do believe that nurture does play a part to an extent, there is clearly some inherent personality differences, that upon reflection can sometimes be traced back to birth.

Grayson was born 4 weeks early, after 2 weeks of preterm hospitalization nothing unusual there. Eme almost identical birth story ( a little more drama including an ambulance ride). Essentially a pretty simple way to describe the two of them and their relationship with one another. Eme always in Grayson's shadow, generally with a little more drama. Okay maybe a little stretch. But when Grayson was born he didn't cry but seem clearly overwhelmed by all that was going on. A sort of "what the heck?". He was always cautious to try new things unless he was sure of success. He didn't eat solid foods until he was eating full meals, didn't walk until he walked without help (never crawled), didn't speak until he was able to speak sentences, etc. Eme was fearless. Constantly practicing something until she mastered it. She is still this way with her school work and with her swim team workouts. She wants to be the best, and will do whatever it takes to get there. Grayson wants to be the best too but will wait his time until he understand everything and then is good. Of course this method isn't necessarily the best for success so I have to say TaeKwonDo and Wii (never thought I would say this) have been helping him learned about persistence and hard work. Grayson observes his way through life, Eme challenges and climbs her way.

Anna was born three days late. She didn't come out screaming, not even freaked out. She came out looking around curious. She was the easiest baby, smiling all the time, very personable, and pretty undemanding (except when it came to sleep - but that is a very long tedious story). This really sums her up today. She is really laid back, loves to socialize, loves even more to go off looking for bugs to capture, and is constantly picking flowers to hand to people as a gift. It is paramount for her to be able to say goodbye, and it is rare that she doesn't take the opportunity to give a hug and a kiss to a person while doing so. Mind you some of these people she doesn't even know beyond a one time introduction, but I have to say she makes more people smile in a day that just about any other person I have ever met. She is my pixie. When I asked her one time about the hugs, she told me she wishes she could hug every person, but some of them she just doesn't know and it's just not okay to hug a stranger ("right mommy?"). If I ever get mad at her and hurt her feelings she runs off and instead of pouting she often goes outside and picks me a flower (boy if that doesn't make me feel like an ogre) or draws me a picture. Anna feels her way through life.

Neve was three weeks early and came out screaming like it was the end of the world. She spent the first year and a half of life completely inconsolable by tried and true means. It wasn't until I quite trying and let her just be that she was able to finally get over it (seriously it took a year and a half to figure this out, to my defense after 3 kids I thought I had it figured out). She is fiercely independent, persistent, vocal/verbal, stubborn, fearless, and has an agenda that is all her own and has been since the day she was born. No amount of nurturing has changed this. Unless you take the time to hear what she is trying to tell you, she will make your life miserable. However in many ways she is the least demanding of all the kids, but when she does have a demand if you don't take the time to acknowledge what it is she wants you have just made your own life very difficult for a very long time. Not to say that she has to always has to have her way, often she concedes without argument, but if and only if you have taken the time to hear what her demands are. Neve leads her way through life.

Now that all this is out there I feel I must say that I find it difficult putting all this down in print. Not because it's not the truth but mainly because I do work really hard to not try and pigeon hole the kids into "types" and personalities. To do so, I feel, would add an unseen force (much like a magnetic field) in shaping the kids. Though I know this directly contradicts my new belief that such characteristics are born not taught, but I still tread lightly. I feel comforted lately by how many people have recently told me how cool it is to see the kid's personalities coming out.

I just hope that all the good traits are because of my nurturing and all the bad traits are because of Paul's genetics.....