Girls Who Play with Trucks

When I was in sixth grade, I had this lipstick that was a pale pinky-lilac, and also completely opaque. I used to wear it when I wore my oversized dark purple t-shirt knotted so fetchingly at the hip so as to better expose the pleating at the top of my acid-washed bell-shaped denim long-shorts. I thought it was positively glamorous. I'm sure it looked like Desitin or some horrible skin-sloughing disease.

I bring this up because, one, I just thought you should know; and two, it illustrates neatly a variety of principles, including the unwillingness of one's offspring to listen to their wise old mother, as well as the potential for terrible fashion at the hands of that same wise old mother (because from the lips down, it was all Mom's doing, and my God, you should have seen my glasses). And, more appropriately, the fact that you're pretty much guaranteed an awkward stage, so when your child is two years old, utterly precious and ringleted, and also totally at your mercy in terms of clothes, you should live that shit UP, my sisters. (I do let her combine fashion elements as she sees fit, and she does seem to have exceptional skill in that arena, but I am the one providing the elements.)

Therefore, drunk on my own power, I am putting her in a lot of dresses these days. Dresses and artfully mismatched tights with stripes and dots, dresses over pants, layered multicolored goodness, and we're only just now getting into hat season. I keep her hair trimmed so that it doesn't rat up too badly, and spritz the curls after I comb them out so they curl back up. It's charming hair, very vintage-y. I adore it, the hair, the clothes, the overall effect. Of course we are also very practical; the hair is short for manageability, the clothes are soft and stretchy and made to be played in. But I am determined to enjoy the glory of toddler cuteness while I can.

So, it seems, is Sophia. She is reliably to be found pushing Elmo ("furry Elmo! No, the REAL Elmo!") in a tiny stroller, nursing her doll babies (or alternately, jamming tiny doll bottles into the mouths of real babies she knows, sorry, Jack), insisting on her sunglasses being on just right, or saying an insistent "Hi!" to whoever is sitting at the front desk of our building. She likes a lot of stereotypically girly things -- dolls, strollers, sparkly shoes (pronounced "farkily" around here -- "Mama, where is my other farkily shoe? I want to put on my farkily shoes and go outside and go to the Eckamo potty place* and walk around around around and come inside and have ICE CREAM!"). Of course she has trains (also beloved) and cars and Godzillas, and most activities around our house are gender neutral (Mama and Dada both cook, clean, go to work and school, apply hair product). But the mimicry of infant care is the big winner, always, and the femminess goes on**, to the point that the other park mommies probably suspect me of having taken a nutpick to the grooves of "William's Doll" on the Free to Be record. Which I do not actually own. Anyway. The thing that shields me from these accusations is the name Sophia has bestowed upon the Most Favored Baby, which is...

Truck.

I asked her a month or so ago what her baby doll's name was; she looked at me like, "duh!" and said, "That's the Truck Baby!" Okay, I thought. Clearly I am behind the times. But these little things drift away, so I asked her again last week if her baby had a name. Same look, same tone: "This is Truck!" Duh.

So Truck it is. Sometimes Truck the Baby, sometimes Baby Truck. Occasionally The Truck Baby. I have no idea where it came from, but boy oh man, do I like it. It's perfectly her. Although, now that I think about it, Sean and I used to call her "Truck" all the time, before she was verbal, just because she was such a sturdy little thing. Maybe she remembers?

I guess if she starts calling her dolls "Gorilla," we'll know.

*the dog run. Eckamo = Speck, our dog.
**Not that cars are innately boy, or babies are innately girl; it's the cultural overlay, and I try very hard not to assign value anywhere. Of course what is she around all day -- why, a woman performing child care! -- so that's what she's going to want to do.

Comments

[Jo in Utah]

The Pea, (same age as Sophia) is enamored with nursing. She insists on nursing BOTH her babies, then saying, otha side! and switching sides. Then she will hand the baby to you, insist you nurse the doll and then otha side! Bamma, you nurse the baby! Awww, so cute. I LOVED nursing my toddlers.

[nate]

I love it! We've been reading Ramona the Pest to the 4 yo--and Ramona has a doll named Chevrolet. "The most beautiful name in the world..."

If you end up w/ a kid like Ramona, you're doing okay...

[Tava]

Totally with you on the clothes thing! I also have a little clotheshorse who loves to choose her own clothes, and has fabulous taste, but I reserve veto power while I still can!
LOVE the "Truck Baby".

[who me]

Boys tend to be naturally inclined to mimic infant care too. You'll see boys who are allowed to have dolls and play-strollers and who aren't dissuaded from doing so pretending to nurse and care for babies.

[Jo]

Oh, yes, absolutely, who me. I totally agree. I'm just poking a little fun at the dominant culture -- since if you didn't know me, and just saw us at the park, you might think I was a dolls-are-for-girls-trucks-are-for-boys person, you know what I'm sayin'?

[Lilian]

So cute!! Truck the baby!!

Kelvin loves the William's Doll book, and his doll, of course ;)

Hope to see you tomorrow, if I don't get stuck in traffic driving down (East) Germantown Pk. (I have no idea how bad it is in the morning).

[pixi]

Farkily? That's farkin funny!

[who me]

I wrote what I did to expand upon what you seemed to be saying.

At the park, I'd think you were that type of person if I observed you not allowing Sophia to play with trucks. Allowing her to play with dolls is not restricting her choices.

Liberalism has become orthodoxy when a girl who wants to play with dolls isn't allowed to do so.

[Texas Mama]

Well, I thought the same about the "cultural overlay" idea until I had a baby girl after my baby boy. I dutifully bought my baby boy an assortment of dolls and offered them repeatedly. Occasionally he'd hold one for a while then move on to blocks or whatever else. He did go through a phase of loving to dress up as ballerinas with his older cousins, though he was offended when they insisted ballerinas could not wear tool belts...

Then I gave my daughter one of those same dolls at about 8 months. She quealed in delight, cluched it to her chest, and began rocking it back and forth, cooing happily.

Now, at 11 months, if we go in a toy store, she yells "ba!!" at any doll she sees and grins manaically if I let her hold one. We actually had to get off a subway train last week because she would not stop screaming and lunging for the real 6 week old baby in the arms of the woman next to us.

My son was exposed to just as much baby care as she is, more probably, because I had more time to baby him, and yet he could not have been less interested in dolls. She was delighted with them from the first instant she saw one. Yes, it could all be personality as opposed to gender, but my experience leads me to believe the instinct to mother truly is an inborn female quality, at least more often tha it is a male one.