It's a Boy!

Since the moment I found out I was pregnant, I had a feeling it was a boy. In every dream I had while pregnant, my child was a boy. To be honest, I was very nervous about having a boy; I had never changed a baby boy's diaper, never really played with a little boy ... the whole idea was foreign to me. But when he came out and my world changed, I was overjoyed.

I love daydreaming about who he will become and what he will be like when he grows up. What profession will he choose? Who will he fall in love with? What kind of man will he be? In all my dreaming, he is a kind, responsible, loving man ... a man that, of course, loves his mother and respects her opinions.

Lately, though, I have noticed more how women talk about the men in their lives, and I'll admit I end up feeling a bit defensive. "My son is a male," I think to myself. "How can you talk about men that way?!" Now, I know I have done this myself - attributed someone's faults directly to their gender - but now I wonder, will my son end up a cookie-cutter male? Will his future wife/girlfriend/partner mutter with disgust, "Men! They never pick up after themselves"? Or, "He never thinks of my feelings!"? Or something else negative we tend to think of as a male attribute?

It may come down to nature versus nurture. Perhaps men just tend towards certain behaviors. Or perhaps the way we raise them in a way that leads them to act a certain way. All I know is, I love my son dearly and I want him to be the best person he can be. I know he's not perfect and never will be - no one is - but I love him all the same.

Always have, always will.