Recalling Daddy's Militant Boyhood

Last night, Madeleine asked me if I liked girls.  Because she is five, and female, and my daughter, of course, I refrained from telling her just how very much I like girls.  Instead, she got a brief historical synopsis.

I had the impression that the question stemmed from some kind of War of the Boys Against The Girls that she is likely enjoying with her brother Daniel these days.  So, to a point, I came clean:  I told her that when I was a boy, I really didn't think girls were interesting at all.  But the real story is much worse than that :  I actually thought they were irredeemably awful:  their looks, their bobby-pins, their skirts - especially the plaid ones, as in the parochial school uniforms donned throughout our Irish, Roman Catholic neighborhood.  I hated their shoes, their hopscotch, their jump-rope.  I was baffled by the silly little rhymes they would intone as they played absurd games that involved slapping one girls right hand against the other girl's left hand, and vice versa, and on and on, in bewildering patterns. Reme I thought they were more than ridiculous.

But that wasn't what I told her - and Daniel, who was eagerly listening:  they got a more cursory history.  It was more like this:  "I didn't really think girls were interesting at all when I was a boy, but then I got older, and now I really like girls!  In fact, I like them so much, I even married one!"

At this point, Daniel finally weighed in, with a smile:  "Well, you were right when you were a boy!"

(June 2, 2013)