I’ve stopped being afraid for my son.
Oscar’s twelve. The skirts have been traded for euro-metrosexual attire complimented by t-shirts which proclaim his love of retro video gaming. His perpetually unbrushed hair is now cut to shoulder length; a girl’s cut, which he mysteriously butchers by creating bangs with child’s scissors.
The whisper of a downy blonde mustache heralds the approach of puberty; his face is longer, nose larger, he’s no longer pretty. He’s more…striking…yet he still passes for a girl. My beautiful daughter, salespeople say. I’ve stopped even blinking at that. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve stopped worrying about him at school. Our progressive public k-8 has always felt safe to me, and as Oscar has grown to be as tall as any kid in the school, my comfort has only increased.
Our Liberal Republic is no paradise of course; there’s homophobia, trans-phobia, it’s out there—but it is, I think, a minority opinion. And that makes all the difference in the world.
My younger son’s friend recently opined loudly that pink was not an acceptable favorite color for boys. I asked him if he knew what my favorite color was. He said no, he didn’t. What was my favorite color?
“Not being an asshole,” I said. I went on to say people liked what they liked.
I could tell the kid didn’t get it. I didn’t care, and neither did Oscar. He’s internalized something about himself over the years. Oscar doesn’t cringe. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t fade into the woodwork.
Oscar’s identity feels bulletproof. At twelve he admits to no romantic feelings or impulses. Nothing would surprise me at this point; he has friends who are boys and girls and at some point I’m sure some of these friends will become something more than friends.
I’m not worried about it. The risks of being a tween, a teen, in an urban area, of being an American in a time of national decline, are real. But these risks are shared by so many. I don’t feel like my son is being singled out.
Our struggles now are with academic performance. I don’t worry about Oscar’s social life, except perhaps, for how to reign it in enough to get some work done.
My kid is happy. He knows who he is. And so do I.
Now, if we can just figure out how to pass seventh grade.
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This just so echoes what happened for us: the differentness/questionable-ness kind of fell into a new “his own style” place for both my 15 & 12 year old (less extreme but with shoulder length hair, also mistaken for daughter). I really haven’t felt preoccupied by this stuff since they were small & it was so picked apart by others… I know that the teens years are… the teen years. I feel so much more confident about them, though.