Farm Fresh Blog

How many 4 year old girls do you know that can skin a raccoon? (Or 4 year old boys for that matter!)

 Grandbaby #1

This was a recent conversation reported by her mother:

Wonderwoman: "Hey Mom, I'm pretending this tortilla is scraps of deer flesh."
Mom: "umm ... that's cool."
Wonderwoman: "Want some? Don't worry. It's cooked."
Mom: "No thanks. I'm not hungry right now."
Wonderwoman: "C'mon Mom. If you eat some, I'll skin a raccoon for you!"

Her mother reports that this conversation was inspired after young Wonderwoman and her father trapped and shot a raccoon that had been wreaking havoc on the farm. They skinned it and were trying to tan the hide but a couple of hours after they salted the hide, something from the woods stole the whole thing!

So okay, our young Wonderwoman needs a little help skinning a raccoon, but this kid is a little Daniel Boone in the making, and the credit goes to her parents for allowing her to think outside the box. Her mother's pet peeve is gender role expectations of little girls. (the Disney Princess syndrome)

She recently posted an adverstisement for children's Halloween costumes on Facebook which showed (I kid you not!) little girls dressed as fairies and princesses and little boys dressed as . . . drum roll please . . .

              . . . an astronaut, a fireman, and a police officer!

If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. 

I was quite interested to read the comments posted below her rant. One mother said she goes out of her way to make sure her children have female doctors in their lives. That act alone spoke volumes to me. On one level I'm happy these young mothers consider this kind of socialization so important. And I'm happy there are female astronauts, police officers and firefighters as role models for young girls. There is one little thing that bothers me, however. Why, 50 years after I was born, is it still such a problem that mothers feel the need to socialize their children against it? Argh!  I can recall my own mother ranting about that kind of thing when I was a child! Have we made no progress in 50 years?  

Well, yes we have, because despite what that particular advertisement indicated, today it's common to have female astronauts, firefighters, and police officers.

I have a dear friend in her 60's. Her parents sent her to college, but only allowed her to choose one of two careers. She could be a secretary, or she could be a teacher. That was it. She had two options, nothing more. This vibrant, creative young woman was locked in a cage. She chose teaching. And although she was a brilliant teacher who influenced countless young lives over her career, to this day, she yearns for something more. She never wanted to teach. She wanted something different, but society wouldn't allow it.

I was blessed with a mother who argued to allow her daughter to play with trucks and her son to play with dolls.

Today her son is a surgeon who takes a positive hands-on approach to raising his three beautiful daughters, and her daughter is a police officer who plays Twister over dead men for a living. Our cultural expectations are slowly changing.

Today society allows more choices for our girls because of women like this:

 Other Half & Daughter

 
... women who embrace their femininity, and yet are determined that their children aren't shackled into roles based on gender instead of their abilities, young mothers who refuse to accept cages.

But this shift in expectations also means a reverse in discrimination. Years ago women were not supposed to leave the home. Society wanted them to stay home and raise the children. Now the same society that puts out ads for little boys as astronauts, firemen, and policemen, looks down on women who stay home to raise their children. If that's not a societal personality disorder I don't know what is.

Thankfully more and more women are casting off roles society forces upon them and following their own paths.  

Although I'd love to take credit for creating this young woman, I cannot. I married her father when she was an adult, so I give all credit to her wonderfully talented and creative mother and her father who encouraged her to ride, rope, shoot, hunt, and do anything a man can do.

Now she's raising her own daughter to think outside whatever box society tries to lock her in. And if this child wants to eat deer flesh and skin raccoons, what advertisement agency is gonna stop her?