Take It and Run Thursday this week is a salute to running moms. I could write hundreds of blog entries about why I think it's important for me to be both a mother and a runner, how running makes me a better mom, what I hope Jack learns from my efforts, and so on. But today, I want to focus on how my fellow Mother Runners and I are taking on the rest of the world.
I absolutely hate it when McDonald's offers two different Happy Meal toys: one for boys and one for girls. I have spent the past four years making it clear that there are no toys that are just for girls or just for boys. If you want to play with a truck, fine. If you want to play with a doll, fine. Just play and have fun. But McDonald's sees things differently, offering My Little Pony for girls and Leggo stuff for boys. I prefer to bypass all of that crap and just ask Jack if he wants the horsey or the Leggos.
But at a recent visit, the McDonald's employee circumvented my efforts, handing Jack and toy and saying, "Here, this is for boys." It was a hand-held electronic sports game. Jack quickly looked at the display and saw that there were sports games and Hello Kitty games and that the sports ones were for boys. "That's cool," Jack said, "Because girls like Hello Kitty, but they don't really like sports."
Oh, hell no.
Jack lives in a home in which Daddy is just as likely to kiss boo boos as Mommy... and in which the most athletic of his parents is, in fact, Mommy. Girls don't like sports? You put Mommy and Daddy in a footrace, and we'll see who likes sports best and who's faster.
I sat Jack down and reminded him that plenty of girls like sports. Like his friends Emma, Kara, Avery, and Elizabeth who play soccer with him. Like the very strong and determined women who we watched run the Olympic marathon on TV. And, of course, like Mommy, who is a dedicated runner. He immediately saw the error of what he had said and thought it was silly that the sports games were given just to boys.
We running moms fight these sexist messages every single time we put on our running shoes. Every drop of sweat proves that women are not just for decoration, that we are athletes just like our male counterparts. My hope is that I am raising a boy who will not immediately dismiss girls when picking a kickball team, and a man who will respect the strength that women possess.
8 comments:
Let us not forget that it was not long ago that women were discouraged from running because our uteruses might fall out! OMG!!11!!!
I think is a travesty that the first women's Olympic marathon was held only in 1984. Ridiculous.
Amen sister!
I love it! Awesome!
YES! I love this post. And I'm sure you know this-- but you're raising a darned cool little boy. I like to think that even those of us who aren't moms can be good examples just by de-inforcing the gender stereotypes in our daily lives and how we relate to kids (even if we don't hand out happy meals).
Amen sister! Great post.
That is annoying! It sounds like you will do a good job teaching him how the world really is-and I hope to do the same! btw - not flaxseed but thanks for the guess@:)
Good work...it's not about one being better than the other, it's about the opportunity existing. I'd go for the horsey myself, but I also played on a boys soccer team as a kid for nearly 7 years and both of my parents were smart enough to encourage it. Go you!
Very well said. I hope to bring some of those standards to my daughter. An hope that if I have boys that I can teach those lessons as well.
Keep up the good work!
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