Missing my daughter
I come from a family of 5 girls and 2 boys. Growing up, there was a lot of everything that goes together with estrogen- shopping and girls’ accessories and coffee (well, that was just my mom).
As we got older, we would sometimes swap clothes (or borrow each other’s clothes without permission which usually culminated in loud furious yelling across the house as the owner of the clothes discovered the ‘borrowing’). The eve of a party would always find us congregated together opposite the large mirror in my mom’s room, peering at ourselves as we applied our makeup. “Where’s my eyeliner?” my mom would ask. It would inevitably turn up in my sister’s room.
It was possibly because there were so many girls around that my brothers are gentle and relatively quiet. My sisters on the other hand, are tough as nails, brilliant, loud and outspoken.
I got married and was blessed with a beautiful son. Four more boys followed him. So now there are five! Five handsome intelligent soccer-loving chess-playing video game-playing roughhousing perpetually hungry males.
I now live in a house full of boys, where there is a heck of a lot of pee all over the bathroom and where there is no shortage of testosterone. But you will never find Barbies and sparkly hair clips and Elsa and Anna matching duvet covers and pillow cases. There is no jewelry (aside from my own). There is no one’s hair to brush and braid and there is no one to take to get their ears pierced. My boys like me to take them on ice-coffee dates where they drink their ice coffees, murmur a thanks and ask me to take them back home. They hate shopping.
One of my closest friends has 3 daughters and they drive her a little bit (a lot!) nutty. They are always around her, on top of her. They won't wear the clothes she picks out for them and they offer her unsolicited fashion and hair advice. When they are driving her nutty and mine are happily killing each other (or playing Minecraft), I remind her that one day my boys will be long gone, will have moved onto their own adventures, while hers will still be right next to her, that even if they live in Iceland, they will still call her all the time, for advice and recipes, or to tell her that they are expecting. Because at the end of it all, a girl never stops needing her mom. Her girls might even live around the corner, where she will no doubt play an integral role in their lives, babysitting (and spoiling) the grandkids and bringing chicken soup when someone is sick.
I tell my friend about my mother-in-law, who worked feverishly and tirelessly, sometimes three jobs, to make ends meet and to provide for all of the needs (and many of the wants) of her two boys. They are grown now and they adore her. But they don’t call her for recipes or to chat. Because the relationship a boy has with his mom is quintessentially different from the relationship a girl has with her mom. I should know. I am nearly 40 and I still call my mom in times of crisis.
The thing is that I understand females better than I could ever understand males. Not only because I am one. I get the moods and hormones, the courage and strength and resilience inside us, my soul’s need for girlfriends.
I honestly don’t know whether I would be up to the task of raising a daughter in this very challenging time, filled with stresses previously unknown to man, stresses of social media and all that goes along with it.
What I know for sure is that every time I see a soft squishy newborn baby girl, dressed in a fluffy pink onesie, complete with a pink flower-adorned headband. my heart twinges afresh.
Don’t get me wrong - I love my boys. All five of them. I am fiercely proud of them. They are brimming with energy, funny, intelligent, great company and fun-loving. I often look at them and I can't get over how lucky am I to have them.
But deep in my heart, I yearn to hold my daughter in my arms.
