Twinkletoes

Sometimes I have brief moments when I mentally hear Bill Cosby imitating his father:

"What's wrong with that boy?"

... or, to use a more recent pop culture reference, Hank Hill from "King of the Hill":

"That boy ain't right."

My son likes to mince about. I'm not exaggeratering. He walks about on his tip-toes, taking little half or quarter steps. Sometimes he'll even hold his little hands out to the sides like a ballet dancer. It's almost a textbook definition of mincing. You know Fred Flintstone's bowling technique? Yeah, that.

I'm not a homophobe. I'll love my son without regard to his eventual sexual orientation. It reflects somewhat on North American society, I think, when even a relatively socially liberal and progressive thinking male like I imagine myself to be even thinks about worrying about how his 21-month old son is comporting himself, body-language wise, and how this might relate to future dating habits. I even laugh inwardly when I consider writing about it now, but there you have it; heterosexual men are weird that way (partially for reasons which are explained later in this post).

Daigoro has probably picked up the habit from a rule in his daycare provider's household that the children (there are five) aren't supposed to run indoors. I imagine this is how they skirt around the "not running rule" while still expressing excitement and the appearance of running quickly. (Daigoro obeys the letter of the law, if not the spirit, in this case - as usual) The bouncing, rapid step of his mincing can seem just like running, except abbreviated. I can only guess that it's developed in daycare, since he never seemed to do it beforehand; one can never be sure.

When he's not "mincing", he walks normally of course, but he also has an exaggerated bow-legged walk from time to time, splaying his feet out to double or triple their normal spacing, so that he looks like he's trying to straddle a horse, or at least a Shetland pony. Do I worry about him growing up to be a cowboy? Eating pudding? On Brokeback Mountain?

To be completely honest, his mincing little runs are pretty darn cute. He's almost always excited when he does so, often accompanying his walk with little squeaks and squeals of enthusiasm about whatever it is he's interested in the moment (the cat, a doll, trucks, trains, bathtime, a bowl of cereal, what have you).

When I was in grade school and high school 15-20 years ago, aside from the usual cut-ups and curse words, a very common (altogether too common, I'm afraid) insult was to call someone a "fag" or a "faggot". It was often used jokingly, of course, but to call someone a "fag" and really mean it was meant as a pretty harsh insult. I didn't use the term myself - my parents were very strict about cursing and insults based in intolerance of any sort, and I adopted a similar policy when very young. Unfortunately, listening to teenagers today, it seems not to have diminished in usage. If anything, it seems to be more common.

It's sad, really, to observe a toddler's way of walking about that is purely an expression of joy and excitement and to layer baggage-laden ideas about sexual identity and masculinity onto it. Daigoro is having fun and walk/running in a way that he finds enjoyable. It's ridiculous to apply any sort of value judgement to that behaviour. Is homophobia so ingrained in our society that even social liberals have little pangs at the sight of their son playing with dolls or mincing about?

Short answer is: yes. Now what do I, as a parent, do about it?

I'm doing everything that I can think of to avoid imposing gender roles on Daigoro - I encourage him to be gentle with dolls, I don't flip out when I see him imitating mom while she's putting on make-up, I let him mince to his heart's content.

Yet, entirely without conscious encouragement from me or Marli, he seems to love hockey, trucks, trains, cars, explosions and running into things and knocking them over - classic "guy" things if ever there were some.

One of these centuries, humankind will wake up collectively and realize that all of these barriers we put up, these identities we forge and then so tenaciously defend, are important in one sense - our self-image - but also arbitrary - that men should be able to dance with their hands above their heads if they want to without having to wear pink triangles, and women should be able to wear a crew cut without hearing jokes about comfortable shoes.

Until then, little twinkletoes is mincing about the house. It's probably good for his calves, which will definitely come in handy in rugby.