Finding Balance: Wellness for the Everyday Struggle: Can I Make My Kid Trans?

***Disclaimer: I intend this post as just a dumb humor statement. I do not think that the actions of parents will change the sexuality or gender identity of their kids.***

I don't know what I like more - his hat, his Columbia jacket, or his Nikes...he's so well dressed!

So I had a long term relationship with a woman. 5 years to be exact. My husband knows this, most of his family knows this, my family knows this. Suffice to say that if any of my kids (I can dream that one day I'll have another one, right?) belongs to the LGBTQA... community that I'll be very comfortable and happy for them. Actually, as long as he or she is a good Ally, then it's all good with me. My current worry is whether my hopes and dreams can mess with his future gender identity. I mean, he's only 5 months old, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. He hasn't even discovered his penis yet (edit! two days after writing this but a couple of weeks before publishing it he found his penis during a diaper change.)

You see, we didn't find out the sex of the baby until the delivery room. That whole shit-show is the stuff of a blog post but I found out it was a boy in that moment. I am the daughter of a single mother, I have one sister, and my mom has 3 sisters. Her sister has 3 girls. I have spent my whole adult life dreaming of building a relationship with my daughter like I have with my mom. And now, I have a boy.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this little guy, from the top of his huge mostly bald - except for his back of the head "soul patch" - head to the tip of his tiny little chunky sausage toes. I don't think there's a thing wrong with him, and I wouldn't change him for the world. He's still a boy. And after my terrible surgical experience bringing him into this world, plus still feeling physically broken 5 months later, I'm not sure I'll ever have another baby. So in the meantime I keep daydreaming, and night-dreaming about my wonderful daughter. So while I don't think it's actually possible to give my son a gender discrepancy issue, here's why I worry that I might at least give him a complex!

1. I literally sometimes call him my little girl. This is NOT on purpose. I wonder why I'm so messed up? Seriously?! He's my adorable sweet loving boy, get it together woman.

2. I have zero problem with my person of any sex expressing any gender they choose. I'm not a girly girl and never have been, but I also don't believe in the uber macho persona of some men. In fact, if he wanted to wear dresses and be a pretty princess I'd celebrate.

3. I have no idea how to relate to a male child. I'm willing to learn, but obviously I'm just under-experienced here. I shudder when I think of potty training, I mean, I haven't been able to teach his father to get all the urine into the bowl and to put the seat down. How am I supposed to manage that with an opinionated toddler?

4. My son already seems to be ridiculously smart for his age. Of course, at 5 months old he's not able to articulate that to me, but he's adapted several different cries to express his feelings. He's already smart enough to know that if mom's in the house he doesn't HAVE to take a bottle - he knows there are boobs around to eat from. What's to say he won't be super perceptive and realize that I'm wishing for a daughter by the time he knows that he certainly isn't one?

5. At the height of my sleep deprived 4th trimester, when I'd not had a solid 2 hours of sleep in weeks, and when he managed to pee on me (and the wall/floor/clothes/new diaper/everyFREAKINGthingwithin5feet) for each diaper change in the last 12 hours I found myself not only crying but also exasperatingly asking him WHY he had to have a PENIS anyway. You see, it's not that I mind that he's a mini-man, it's that he has this high pressure fire hose that he uses to douse everything within reach!

Don't get me wrong, I love my son, and I am excited to be able to raise a white man in this country to be sensitive to race/class/sex/all minority groups. I can keep hoping that maybe one day I will have a wonderful daughter IN ADDITION to my son. Either way he'll be a wonderful guy to watch grow up. Unless of course he chooses to be my daughter himself, in which case I'll love him just the same. The most important part to me right now is to be sure I don't make him feel inadequate or wrong for the body he was born with, and that he can grow up to be any sort of person he wants to be - sparkly dresses, combat boots, ballet, football or any/all/none of the above.

And...fun pictures from recent times.