Grown Up Tomboy

Here’s me: I have short hair. I’m a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of gal. I love my Converse sneakers. As a kid, I was a tomboy: I played softball, I liked bugs, I sold night crawlers (i.e. big worms). I hated wearing dresses. My friends were all boys. Part of this was born of necessity: for many years, there were no girls in the neighborhood my age. Hence, into the unpaved alley with Tommy and Roy, whipping handfuls of gravel at one another in “rock wars”, and playing out scenes from reruns of “Rat Patrol.”

I was watching F. tonight, as she figured out how to propel her little body between the two shelves of her changing table. (She likes to squeeze into small places, and peer out at us, and laugh.) I say, “What a big, strong girl you are!” And she grins. She loves to climb. She’s always on the go. She loves rough-housing and hanging upside down. She’s a hoot.

But looking ahead, I feel a tremor of fear: what if she’s a girly-girl?

You know – pink dresses? Wearing fairy wings to Target? Ballet class? Squeamishness about all the things I liked as a kid: fishing, picking bugs out of the grill of my dad’s car (OK, that was gross), hunting night crawlers after a rainstorm?

Not that there’s anything wrong with girlyness and all its attendant finery: just that I fear I won’t be able to relate to it. I still can’t walk in heels.

Part of my fear around this issue is how little control I have over it: F. is either going to be girly, or not. Ain’t nothing I can do. I know very well that non-girly women can (and do) produce girly-girls. I’ve seen the look of puzzled amazement on my friend G.’s face as her daughter pirouettes across the room sporting a tiara and an old ball gown (i.e. her pajamas). I see that look, that look that says, “How did I make this?”

Will this be a look I’ll have on my face in a couple years hence? Will F. be flitting about in purple and pink, painting her nails, drawing hearts in her diary? (She’ll be all of three. But girls start early these days.)

Of course, I’ll love her and think she’s amazing no matter where on the girl-spectrum she falls. I’ll go to the mall. I’ll listen to whatever pop-princess is de rigeur. I’ll buy her the Barbie – even the Barbie Dream Car. (Oooh, Barbie Dream Car!)

But I have to say: if she wants to raise worms in the basement – I won’t mind.