The "Boy" I'm Supposed To Be

I've had a single piercing in my left ear since my sophomore year in college. I was not the first man on campus to do it, but I was a fairly "early adopter" and it sure felt like I was being brave, because, you know, people might think I wasn't a "real man." I wish I could say I did it as some sort of statement of solidarity with my gay brothers or even a big punk rock FU to the world, but I really did it for my girlfriend who told me all the cool guys in LA had pierced ears. And I know it sounds pathetic, but at the time, having this pierced ear was a real challenge to my sense of masculinity.

For weeks the silver stud wore me rather than the other way around. I almost imagined I could see it out of the corner of my eye. I imagined the thoughts of strangers whenever I was not holding my girlfriend's hand: pansy, wimp, fag, pussy, sissy. The wisecracks from my friends didn't bother me: taking crap from your friends was all part of what it meant to be a man, but the occasional piece of unsolicited "advice" from strangers (always young, white males like myself) stung. By the time I graduated, male ear jewelry was ubiquitous.

Sitting here more than a quarter of a century later, I rarely think about my earring, one I've been wearing since then. I never take it out, the gold plating is all worn off, I don't even notice it when I look in the mirror. The last time anyone mentioned it was Ana, a 3-year-old during my first year of teaching 11 years ago. She looked directly at my left ear and said, "You're supposed to be a boy."

The readers of this blog are overwhelmingly female. Facebook tells me that 97 percent of the users of my Teacher Tom page are female. I hope that this post doesn't wind up losing me my audience, but it's a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately.

A while back, I received an email from one of those few male readers. In it he wrote:

I think one of the most appealing things about your blog posts here is that you are a man and not, well, a sissy. It is very encouraging to read your parenting stuff written in a way that is not emasculating. (And yes that matters.)

That felt good. As a preschool teacher I work in a field dominated by women and it’s of consequence to know that it hasn’t entirely feminized me. To be honest, I’m not even really sure what that means, and I have nothing but respect for femininity, but remaining masculine is important to me nonetheless.

There’s a lot of twisted machismo out there, I know, and I’m the first to admit that testosterone might be the most dangerous substance known to humankind, but I’m proud to be a man. I’m proud to be a man who works with children. I’m proud to be a man to talks about poop and pee and feelings and love. Especially love.

Over the years, many parents have told me that they chose Woodland Park because I’m a man. Hundreds of people have said to me, “We need more male teachers," or "My child would thrive with a male teacher."

I’ve never known what to say to any of this and I'm quite uncomfortable writing about gender because almost everything you say is wrong. In fact, I would say it's actually impossible to write about gender because beyond genitals (and not even then sometimes) every statement you make is a false one, at least for someone. That said, I’m a preschool teacher because I really like doing it. But if I were to hazard any kind of comment on the “goodness” of being a male who works with young children, it would be that I’m a masculine weight in the balance to counter the (real or perceived) preponderance of feminine love in children’s lives.

Love is nurturing and warm and cuddly for sure, and those are good things, but it can also knock you out. It kicks over the drum set, rips off its shirt, and makes you scream with mindless joy.

Not to deny its feminine side, but without the muscle of masculinity, the whole idea of love can seem limp. It lacks dynamic force; its full-throated Roger Daltry scream. Love can feel like kittens and hot cocoa, of course, but just as often it's explosive, towering, mighty, even boastful. It's these masculine aspects of love that make us laugh until it hurts, jump off of garage roofs, and play fools. It’s the masculine aspects of love that causes us to join hands, to rise up, to overcome -- the powerful moral force MLK writes about.

As I watched the boys in our 5's class race around the outdoor classroom on Friday, bearing the "arms" they'd each constructed by hot gluing bits of wood together, laughing, shrieking, their faces puffy, sweaty, and red from the exertion: I saw not "violent" or aggressive play, but rather boys falling in love with each other the ways boys so often do through wrestling or tackling or otherwise bouncing off one another. Their play was reckless and relentless, an all-embracing hug that expressed joy in being alive and being with one another: you know, love. I was thrilled to see the girls joining in as well, although without the weaponry. (I should mention here that for the first time in my tenure, the kids in this first 5's class have only banned "real guns." Our self-made rules are silent on the subject of pretend guns. I'm guessing it's because they feel they are old enough to discern the difference between real and pretend violence.)

My wife Jennifer tells the story of the time she met The Who, a band that has in many ways represented masculinity for me since I was 14. They played in Seattle and she and her girlfriend had figured out they were staying the Edgewater Hotel. She found them loud, obnoxious jerks, who spoke with the kind of dialect she couldn't understand. This fits with their reputation. Clubs that booked them in those early years said it was more like having a street gang show up than a band of minstrels. And after all, they built their reputation in their early years by destroying their instruments at the end of the show and hotel rooms after it.

The Who have never been particularly popular with women. Despite being among the legendary rock and roll acts they never had a song reach #1, which is probably because they only really appealed to half the population. Compared to their contemporaries, these men were not notorious womanizers, they didn't flaunt supermodels or starlets. It was always the four of them, by most accounts, like brothers, fighting and bickering, of course, but together singing about masculine love until death did they part. It was a band of brothers kind of love, the kind that fills you up to bursting, that makes you feel wild with love, that causes you to pose with legs wide, fists in the sky, and every muscle flexing. I hope that every girl, every woman knows what this feels like, because I know that every boy and man does. Simply put, it's awesome.

Jennifer found The Who frightening and got out of there fast. I can see that. Many of the mothers who come to our school find the kind of exuberant play in which the boys engaged on Friday to be unsettling. Why? There is no research that connects this kind of childhood play with future violent behavior. I think it's because it doesn't look at all like the feminized notion of love portrayed in the aisles of Hallmark; indeed, it looks like exactly the opposite -- gritty, loud, messy -- which is exactly what the other half should look like. When I see the boys in the band smashing up those instruments, it reminds me of every man I've ever loved.

Love is way bigger and way more complicated, and also way simpler, than most of us imagine. It's nurturing and roaring and soft and hard; it flexes and reposes; it whispers and it shouts. Love is that thing that fills us up with not just ourselves, but with everything and everyone around us. It's a sigh and it's an explosion.

Nearly all of the kids who have ever come through Woodland Park already have at least one strong, present male figure in their lives. Most have many. But I know that for a few hours in the day, I will be front and center in those children's lives, and in part I take it as a responsibility to be a good example of  the "boy" I'm supposed to be.

And I only hope that as the children pass by me, they don’t pass without knowing that I love them.

And now if you have a few more minutes, here’s another non-sissy rock n roll video, just because I think it's just about the greatest thing I've ever seen:

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