Struggling to accept gender nonconforming son
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Anonymous
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I don’t know anyone in real life who can relate to my struggles. I would really like to find a peer group of like-minded kids for 7 y/o DS and a support group for myself. The whole situation depresses me to no end. I pray incessantly to be the best, loving mother I can be, and I’m not particularly spiritual.
I know that my acceptance of DS is what matters most, but I can shake the feelings of shame, disgust, embarrassment when I see DS playing with barbies (that we bought!), drawing pictures of unicorns, or gleefully running around the playground with his little girl friends while all the other little boys are racing against each other or playing basketball. DS probably senses my disapproval of some of the behaviors, but I’m trying really really hard to just love him for who he is and not worry about the rest. The most distressing part of it all is how desperately DS wants to be like his friends. We are POC and all of DS’ friends are white. He has said that brown people stink and that blonde, straight hair and blue eyes are better (than brown eyes or curly hair). If my extended family knew of how he speaks about our culture, they would be appalled. We talk all the time about the inward and outward beauty of brown and black folk, but none of it resonates. I read the other long thread about the OP with a similar kid and I know everyone will tell me that I need to love DS for who he is, I have no reasons to fear, not accepting DS would be far worse, etc etc and the rational part of me gets all that. But the rational part of me is overrun with the emotional side of me. I feel this strange grief and loss over all this. I’m sure I will also be slammed as a terrible mother who’s destroying my child’s life and I definitely don’t want that either. I’m just struggling mightily with DS and since I can’t talk to anyone about this in real life, I’m writing about it here. |
Anonymous
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I’m sorry OP. Have you, and can you, seek out therapy? Both for you and your kid? Someone who is sensitive and knowledgable about his behavior? He needs to be able to grow up with a strong sense of self and worth, regardless of what that means to him. Whatever gender he identifies with. And to address his concerns about his ethnicity too.
Most of the therapy might end up being for you since he’s so young. Not sure about that. I guess it depends on the therapist. But you don’t have to go through this alone. A professional can be very helpful. But it’s imperative to pick the right one. Big hugs. |
Anonymous
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I know that you know you need to love and accept your son as he is, and I also know that's hard.
But there's something more that I think you need to do, and it might be even harder. You need a better community. I don't mean moving (although that would be ideal) but you have problems on two axes, and both can be solved by broadening the folks your son is exposed to. 1) He needs to find an activity or a space where he is not quite such an outlier as a GNC boy. Since he's little, you need to find that space for him. Ballet? Theater? 2) You also need to find a space where he's not the only brown kid. He is being "othered" in two ways, and both of them can be helped by changing the communities with which he is interacting. |
Anonymous
This stood out we are almost in 2020! but atleast you have taken the first step to recognize your sexism and bias.. he's still a little kid and its OK to love unicorns and barbie dolls there is nothing inherently wrong or evil what your DC is doing. This can just be a phase like or something more evolving and you need to be working on loving and accepting of your child and perhaps others who don't fit your mold and are just being themselves and want to live their lives. |
Anonymous
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This may have nothing to do with gender at all. He may be gay. Or he may be a straight boy who likes unicorns.
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Anonymous
This. I would focus on accepting him as a kid with his own interests. But I would also work on finding a community where he sees faces similar to his own, and can build his positive feelings about himself. That’s where I would focus my attentions. I’m not that familiar with POC groups around here, but maybe there’s a church or some other group? Maybe a Cub Scout troop with other poc kids? |
Anonymous
| Just wanted you to know that you’re not alone. I’m seeking therapy to help. |
Anonymous
+1 He is probably gay, OP. Your story reminds me of my friend's boy. From the time he was just walking, he was finding her clothes (sparkly ones) and I remember he came over and found a pink boa and ran around with it. When he was older, he was painting his nails. He's in HS now and came out. It was no surprise to any of us. And once they've figured it out, many kids (and adults) seem to stop gravitating to those extremely visible "signs"--like the pink nail polish. I think it's because they are settled now, not questioning, so don't need to over-advertise or try things out or seek. Our culture has changed so much in that 14 years since I've watched her toddler grow up. I recall the mom and dad being a little jarred by all the displays. Then they got him into drama. What I also think helped the dad a little was they then had two other sons, and the second son was hyper-masculine (like a bruiser boy, way out on a standard deviation), and the third son was not extreme at all, just sort of in the bell curve of "typical boy." Watching this family really convinced me that genetics are involved. |
Anonymous
| Your son doesn't sound unusual. There have always been boys like your DS and there always will be. When I was a kid we didn't say "gender nonconforming" but it's the same, nothing new or unusual, and nothing wrong with him at all. |
Anonymous
Op here. Would love to know who you find, PP. Are you also POC? |
Anonymous
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Our DS was very similar from 4-7, his best friends were girls and they loved sparkly colorful things. My DH really struggled, but we basically just worked hard not to project ourselves into the future/ catastrophize/ worry. At 8 he changed schools and fell in with a group of boys this time and they became friends. Now he is into bugs and dinosaurs and plays tag constantly. He still loves “glamour glue” crafts and is attracted to velvets on beanbags, but he is more “typical” compared to how he acted when he was younger.
We realized our child is very influenced by his peer group. I would watch the friends to find the root of the racial comments. But just try to roll with it and love your child. We don’t know if our DS will be gay or straight/ athletic or artistic, but he seems happy. So maybe your little guy just needs to explore all different parts of himself on the way to growing up. I did ask our now 10yo DS about his different friend sets over the years. And he told me when he was little the girls were more fun, but now he likes the boy games better because the girls just talk all the time. He remains annoyed that boy shoes don’t come in rainbow sequins but he does like to blend in a bit more now. His colorful taste is expressed through home decor. Therapy for yourself can really help. |
Anonymous
| Black persons here, can you move to live near more POC so he has friends who look like him? |
Anonymous
OP here. We are working on it. Our goal is to be in a completely different neighborhood and school district by the next school year. |
Anonymous
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Why do we think he's gay? Because he likes girl things and plays with girls at age 7??? This is a second grader.
My older son definitely played with girls and dolls at that age. He's not gay. He's very creative and I think as a kid, he was just very into pretend play and inside his own imagination and girls were a bit more into that stuff than boys at that age. So he played with the other humans he had things in common with. This kid is little. Not saying he couldn't be gay. But jumping to definitely gay is crazy too. |
Anonymous
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OP has two separate issues going on, the GNC and the POC. I echo the PP who mentioned your son is an outliner in his community and if he was in an environment where there were more kids like him perhaps his views would be different. I know you are dealing with a double whammy, I wouldn't be able to touch on where you can find many POC GNC kids in the DMV for your son to hang out with so he isn't an outliner.
But separately, I can touch on the POC outliner. My nephew and niece are biracial but they are very dark so the world sees them only as black. My sister (who is white) put them in daycare and later in a school where they were the only POC in their homerooms. And then my niece, who has beautiful curly natural hair, started saying to my sister she hated her hair, that she wanted to be white, that she wanted blonde hair, that black people hair is dirty/smelly and didn't like her skin. After speaking to her teachers and asking my niece, it doesn't appear any kids were saying this to her, she came up with these conclusions on her own and the guidance counselor at school suggested that it is probably because all her friends are blonde hair/blue eyed white. She doesn't see anyone else like herself at school (and probably not very much in the media, tv, etc, but that's for another thread). My point is, when your son is the only POC among his friends, it is human nature to want to fit in and be like the others, hence his statement re black people. Get him around some other POC children. Good luck. |