GoMom

Do you try to resurrect parts of your own childhood for your babe? I bought the CD Free to Be...You and Me
for my son, 'cause I have so many happy memories of listening to it as
a little girl. It was the '70s, and all the songs on the album tried to
advance the idea that little girls and little boys could break out of
the gender roles that bound the previous generation. William wants a
doll? Then his parents shouldn't try to buy him sports junk. Boys can
cry, it's all right. Advertising is bullshit, and girls shouldn't buy
the message that they will do all the housework with a smile.

The song that effected me most as a kid was "Girl Land." "They're
closing up Girl Land, some say it's a shame/It used to be busy, then
nobody came./And other folks tell you they're glad that it's
done/'Cause Girl Land was never much fun." The verses captured this
creepy idea that freedom was seized from us on our way to womanhood--we
would no longer be able to climb trees. We'd have to wait for boys to
open doors for us. Except Marlo Thomas and friends closed Girl Land
down, and now we can "Do what we like and be who we are." 

"Is this CD about freedom?"
asked my son, playing in the bathtub with all his little ducks and his
alligator, the water dyed a deep pink and crowned with bubbles. Sure
kid, but just 'cause we're free to pick any job we want doesn't mean
Girl Land is closed down quite yet. I wouldn't be wearing contact
lenses and five pounds of make-up if it was. Though the sting of
oppression is soothed by the idea that gay men must engage in
time-consuming visual marketing as well, our culture hasn't yet shaken
off constrictive gender roles. Girls don't have to be nurses--they can
be doctors--but ideally, they will be sexy doctors. And boys
don't have to grow up to be the only breadwinners in the family--but
ideally, they will outearn their wives. I know we've come a long way,
but what's the next step?