Parenting and the sacred masculine

The ultrasound said the sex of the baby was female. We picked out a name and for over a month, got used to the idea that we would have a baby girl. 

At the next ultrasound, the doctor asked if we knew the sex of the baby. What a strange question, I thought, when I had handed him the paperwork from the last appointment. That is when we found out the first ultrasound was wrong, and our baby had the undeniable anatomy of a male. 

I was in shock. It felt like such a huge change. And the fact that I felt it so deeply also came as a shock, because I had convinced myself that it did not matter, that we would be gender neutral, that society places so many associations and expectations on sex and gender stereotypes, and I would resist that. 

Lucky thing, we had decided to keep the sex secret during the pregnancy, so we were the only ones who knew of this change of plans. I did this, especially, to avoid the pink-and-blue dichotomy of newborn clothes and gifts. We refused to tell people the baby´s chosen name and no-way held a misnomered "gender reveal party" (it is a sex reveal at best, or really an anatomy identification celebration. We should so celebrate well formed fingers and toes.) When people asked me in the street "what I was having" I would sometimes wryly respond, "an elephant". I detested the focus on sex/gender. So I was surprised that I had internalized the original information I had, and felt a connection with the idea of having "a girl."

Which made me wonder, why was I not having a girl? Why did the universe bring this baby boy into my life, for me to raise?

The moms around me, with whom I shared pregnancy and delivery and newborn life, also mainly had boys. And we were not your typical moms: we were transplants and immigrants and outsiders who had come together from around the world to live near each other in small communities in the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru, seeking alternative lifestyles, natural births, indigenous practices and spiritual meaning. 

 

our baby spending time as an infant immersed in the Andes mountains

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I realized it must mean something that we were tasked with raising boys. Raising the next generation of men. And I took it to be a sacred responsibility. 

I thought a lot about what and how I wanted to teach my child, my son, to counter the gender stereotypes I so despised from the moment of conception and more importantly, to counter the toxic masculinity infesting Western culture and the US society. 

I thought about the toys to bring into the house or not -- no guns, no weapons, no army and military. But also, a wide range of toys and stimuli, from pots and pans to coloring to blocks. I made it a point to get him a toy kitchen, dollhouse and his own baby doll early on. Instead of gender neutral, I see this now as gender inclusive -- that he be exposed to all types of games, imaginary role play, actions, movements and hobbies. That none of these be "boy things" or "girl things" -- they are kid things, they are person things. 

Of course, as children do, my child had natural inclinations for certain things: all things wheels, building stuff, taking stuff apart to find out how it worked, tools. Perhaps typical "boy" things -- but definitely innate capacities to honor and nurture. 

We are not gender neutral parents. We use traditional pronouns, we speak in gendered language (Spanish has masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives; our son´s name ends in an "o"), we buy him shirts and shorts from the boy´s side mostly (although hot tip: if your son has thin hips, try the girls clothes -- they tend to be slimmer. Another sexist reality.). But we try to be inclusive and make space for diversity.

At one point those first couple years, I thought about the number one value I wanted to teach my son, something that he would not learn at school or in books, but something to carry with him his whole life. I decided it was, to love nature and have a relationship with the earth. I did see him have an innate attraction to nature (does your kid also collect rocks and sticks and bugs?!?) and I wanted him to feel a part of nature. Now, in the middle of our first season of gardening together on our apartment´s terrace, nothing gives me greater joy than the way he cares for his plants, the pride he takes in his sunflowers, and the thrill he gets from seeing the first sprouts pop out of the dirt. 

And I realized, this is sacred masculinity. This is the type of person, the type of boy and future man, that I think will help heal this world. One who cares for creation, who kisses leaves, who takes responsibility for watering every day. One who understands that soil is alive, that the seeds you poke down into the dark ground will before long come alive, and soon after, provide you air and food. That this process brings great joy. 

We need boys and men like this to cultivate sacred masculinity. Because if we are going to honor the sacred feminine, we have to cultivate it in all of us. Most women already honor, respect and rever our power, our intuition, our inner goddess. It is men who need to learn this, to let go of the violence, the domination, the disrespect, the fear. It is boys who need to learn to connect with nature, to feel their feelings, to be strong and soft, to trust their intuition, to develop their talent for creation not destruction, to collaborate and to be caretakers. And it is up to parents, guardians, and caretakers to teach them and point them in the right direction. For me this is my greatest mission as a parent of a little boy.

 (And I say this wanting to take into account everyone along the gender spectrum, regardless of our anatomy. Perhaps we need new language to describe this phenomonen - maybe someone can help me broaden my perspective here, as I am steeped in binary.)

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(trigger warning: this next section refers to gun violence)

Living outside the US, I watch and read the news from my home country with a mix of horror and awe. The school shootings and mass shootings. People here ask me, what is that about? Of course the answer must be complex and multifaceted, but in all the examples I can think of, there is a common element: toxic masculinity. Boys and men who are hurting, who have deep feelings they do not know how to express, have not been socialized to express, feel they cannot express except through guns and violence. Yes, they play it out in video games and see it in movies. For some, this is enough catharsis. But there is a teaching from a young age that you can get what you want through violence, and this is carried out from an interpersonal level to a geopolitical level (Oh, the US does not like that government? We will just send in the military to violently overthrow it and impose what best serves our interests. And everyone applauds the liberators.) With messages such as these, what else can we expect?

I cannot pretend to imagine what goes on in the heads of those boys and men who pick up guns with the intention of killing and harming people and especially children. But I can imagine there are elements of the disillusionment of entitlement -- like something was taken from them that they deserve. There are surely feelings of impotence -- like they do not have the power they thought they would/should, but find it behind a trigger (what is more powerful than giving or taking a life?). And probably, there are feelings of fear -- like they are out of control and have found this as a way to take it back. This is exacerbated for white men, who statistically are responsible for the majority of mass shootings in the US over the past 30 years.

Unfortunately, I would expect all these feelings to come up in this process of elevating the sacred feminine and balancing it with masculine energy. Imagine living for 10,000 years as the dominant sex (and race), who makes decisions, has power over reproductive choices, and has the approval and structural support to live into their strengths? Imagine that female counterparts start demanding the same -- in a scarcity mindset where there is not enough for everyone, that we must compete, that your rights are my lack thereof. Not to mention the real fear that so many men unconsciously feel for women´s power -- that primordial power to generate and bring life into the world that cis-gender men will never have. 

We need to help boys and men find healthy ways of expressing, redirecting and transforming these emotions. The sacred union, the balance of masculine and feminine energies, the mutual respect of men and women and all across the gender spectrum -- this is the work of all of us. Especially, importantly -- the boys. It is easy for a woman to be a feminist -- that just means believing in your own dignity and worth as a person. For a boy or man, it means believing in the dignity and worth of someone else alongside you -- and it is often not easy to share. So let´s start with the toys. Let´s teach little boys to share both toys and feelings, to be collaborative, to respect girls, moms and nature, to grow plants, and to kiss the flowers. 

 

our little boy loves to smell and kiss the flowers