She's all girl. Whatever THAT means.

Ever since Clara was born, people have been asking me whether parenting a baby girl is different than parenting a baby boy. And I’ve always answered very honestly that, except for the clothes, I haven’t noticed much of a difference.

Sure, Clara’s about the most easy-going baby I’ve ever had the pleasure of snuggling, but that isn’t necessarily a girl thing, I figured. And other than that, how would it be different? She does what babies do: eats, sleeps, dirties her diapers.

But lately I’ve noticed some differences. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first but I realized it has to do with the way Clara relates to her toys. Now, it’s important to point out that when it comes to toys, Clara’s had much more of a traditionally “male” experience: that is to say, we haven’t bought her any of her own toys yet and she’s playing with hand-me-downs. What she plays with is the sort of thing her brothers would have played with at her age, because it actually is exactly what they played with!

But she plays differently. Whereas my boys preferred balls, blocks, bright colors and anything with wheels, Clara seems to prefer soft, cuddly toys and especially anything with a face. She doesn’t just chew and shake and squeeze and slap her stuffed animals, she snuggles them…and talks to them. If I hand her a stuffed animal or doll, she starts babbling with excitement and pulls it into a great big bear hug. Right before she slobbers on it. (and THEN comes the slapping and shaking).

Could be a personality thing, I again thought. But then the other day I stumbled across this article. Among the parts that jumped out at me:

It’s been observed for a while that, visually, baby girls prefer faces, whereas boys prefer moving objects, such as mobiles, even as very young infants. “[A baby girl] prefers the faces that lean down and stare lovingly into her eyes,” says Goldberg. “Little girls hold eye contact longer than the average boy. Stare back and give her expression. Girls tend not to respond to flat expressionless gazes.”

Since Clara was born I’ve been purposely staying away from any articles that smack of “how girls and boys are different” because I didn’t want to influence the way I’d interpret her behavior. Of course, I’ve probably read all these things in the past and they’re floating around in my subconscious somewhere. But my husband (who I can promise you has not read 1/1000th the number of articles and studies I have on child development and parenting) even observed recently how much Clara stares at his face, as though studying his expressions. She moves her mouth along with him as he talks. It’s clear she’s very, very interested what he’s saying and is trying mimic it herself–something I don’t remember any of the boys doing at this age (6 months).

On the other hand, maybe we’re talking to her differently because she’s a girl. Or maybe we’re handing her the stuffed animals a little more frequently than the balls and trucks. Maybe we don’t even notice that we’re acting differently because it’s so ingrained in us.

So what say you? Those of you with boys and girls (or with experience caring for boys and girls) did you notice differences in their behavior from this young an age? Do you chalk it up to natural differences in the genders? Or do you think different-gendered babies and children act differently because we expect and encourage them to?

EDITED to share this funny anecdote. I was at the playground with Owen and William today, and there were two little girls there about their ages.

In light of this conversation, the contrast made me smile.

In honor of Mother’s Day, all this week I’ll be posting about my own mother.

I wrote this essay in 2004 and it was published on LiteraryMama later that year. It remains one of the most personal things I’ve ever written for publication.

Blueberries for Mom

by Meagan Francis

Mom buckles me into the backseat of our 1979 station wagon, fastening the seatbelt snugly. She is thirty-seven, young-looking, pretty. She wears a belted sweater in a rusty shade of orange — just slightly outdated and out-of-season for a July morning in 1982.

We are going blueberry picking.

My mother died when my son Isaac, was six weeks old. By that time her face was prematurely aged from years of drinking. Her hair, like her personality, tended to be unpredictable, frizzled, choppy. Though it was 1999, Mom still wore the circa-1979 belted-orange sweater, still drove old cars, and still earned a 1979 living wage. It was as though at some point Mom’s connection to the outside world just stopped.

I sat nursing my new baby at the memorial service, listening numbly as the pastor spoke, then a few of her friends. Gee, isn’t it nice that they’re all saying such good things about Mom, I thought to myself as I casually adjusted Isaac’s latch on my nipple. Out of the corner of my eye I saw others — more distant relatives, acquaintances of Mom’s — watching me. “How brave she is,” I imagined them murmuring to each other. In truth, I just wanted to get home and get back to life.

When your mother is an alcoholic, you learn how to detach.

“We’ll have to drive a little further this year,” Mom says, gripping the burnt-sienna steering wheel, squinting as she anticipates her turn. “They took down most of the woods to build more holes for the golf course.”

I clutch my bucket with excitement as Mom pulls up to the edge of the dense northern Michigan woods.

The next day, we made the three-hour car trip to Cheboygan, where Mom’s ashes were buried in the plot next to my would-have-been big brother, Patrick, who’d died suddenly, in 1970, at six weeks old — the same age as the fat baby I held football-like under my arm as I stood next to her grave. His death was when Mom’s drinking began, so my older sister tells me.

It was a mild November day and I felt uncomfortable, like I wasn’t doing the grieving-daughter-thing quite right. Her death felt, to me, less like a loss and more like a release — a reprieve from that sinking feeling that somebody you love is going downhill, and there’s nothing you can do but try to keep yourself from going down with them.

Later, on the car ride home, I glimpsed at the death certificate and saw the cause of death: cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism. I felt a momentary surge of anger at the faceless coroner for his diagnosis.

When your mother is an alcoholic, it’s hard to get past the impulse to cover up.

“Look over here!” Mom says. “I found a patch!”

“Right, honey.”

It wasn’t until later, much later, when I was able to remember not just Mom-last-month but also the Mom I knew when I was five, eight, ten, that I began to grieve. Easier to cry for the loss of the mother who made Christmas ornaments with you every year than the mother who showed up drunk to your wedding and attempted to dance Latin-style with your new husband’s crazy uncle. Her death made everybody’s job easier. Now we could just remember Mom the way we all wished she’d always been.

I think it took me a long time to accept that Mom was an alcoholic because her usual behavior didn’t fit with my childish definition of “drunk.” I’d seen drunk in the glassy eyes of my boisterous uncle as he swung me dangerously over his head, laughing at my delighted squeals as the sober adults in the room nervously watched on, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice to rescue a catapulting child from going through the front-room window. I’d seen drunk in the loud but good-natured political debates around the table of my aunt’s house: die-hard liberals, right-wing conservatives, political scandals, and a couple bottles of good liquor. That was drunk, not Mom’s bitter, angry irrationality that just happened to be combined with a sizeable dose of Ernest and Julio.

And drinking wasn’t the entirety of what made Mom difficult — it was simply the factor that could take her from slightly manic to something more, something harder to explain away. Sober Mom might nag me to do the dishes, but only drunk Mom would add, “You’re just like your father, you think only of yourself, and you’ll always be selfish.” Sober Mom might sternly chastise my friend and me for trying to leave the house wearing too much makeup, but only drunk Mom would tell us we looked like a couple of two-bit floozies, her hands clenched, tears in her eyes: angry, but more than angry — threatened. Sober Mom welcomed debate, seemed to encourage my spirited side. Drunk, she seemed overwhelmed by the fact that I had opinions of my own, wounded by the force of my preteen will, and unable to cope.

On days like those, my best friend wouldn’t commiserate, “Man, your mom’s being a bitch,” but would instead pretend — badly — that she didn’t notice, perhaps imagining the conversation her parents would have over the dinner table when she told about what she’d seen: It’s sad, isn’t it. I wonder if we can do anything?

Sometimes when I’ve had a glass of wine and I lean in over my children to tuck them into bed and kiss them good-night, I wonder if they smell the wine on my breath and if that memory will be forever etched in their memories, and if they’ll one day associate me with that smell the way you associate pine needles with Christmas and melting candle wax with birthday cake. The smell of certain kinds of alcohol — particularly when covered up by a dose of mouthwash — jolts me into the past.

When your mother is an alcoholic, it can really take the fun out of drinking.

We’re home. Mom is probably having a glass of wine, and we’re sorting and cleaning the berries, then divvying them up into individual containers — some for freezing, some for snacking, some for baking. We’ve decided to make blueberry muffins today; blueberry pancakes tomorrow.

“You can get out a mixing bowl, the measuring cups, and a wooden spoon,” says Mom. “Thanks for being a great helper.”

I jump to the task, glowing.

My challenge becomes determining which of my mother’s behaviors were damaging (because, certainly, many were) and which were enriching. How can I separate the good from the bad? How can I take the person I am today and decide which parts Mom helped develop (so to emulate) and which parts she just messed up (so to avoid)?

It would be easier if it was as simple as “alcohol = always bad” and “no alcohol = always good.” But it was my mother who, though most likely three sheets to the wind at the time, introduced me to Harry Chapin and the original Broadway recording of Fiddler on the Roof. It was my mother who, while accusing me of doing things that my older brother actually did (thereby causing me to question my own sanity) and handing out irrelevant punishments, also encouraged my writing, praised my singing voice, and cuddled with me on the couch while watching TV.

I have moments with my own children that scare me — moments of disproportionate rage, violent urges that come and go so quickly and sharply they leave me breathless Sometimes my own (sober) voice seems to morph into the scary tone of drinking Mom — shaming, irrational, cruel, the sound that can make my children wither before my eyes. Other times, I hear the gentle, low humor of Mom on her good days: clever, quick-witted, fun. I’m not sure which I find more unsettling.

Mothering, for me, isn’t just a matter of following what feels right. What feels right, I’ve been told by therapists, books, and armchair psychologists, is skewed — based on an upbringing filled with uncertainty, dishonesty, and blurred boundaries. I am not allowed to trust my feelings because they will mislead me. At first, I dealt with this uncertainty by mothering in ways that seemed socially acceptable — the hope being that using society at large as a mothering litmus test would keep me from screwing up. Yet my ever-present urge to rebel (thanks, Mom) against much of what is considered “good parenting” has led me to make up my own rules as I go. An absence of predictable bedtimes — neglectful disregard of security-building routine, or that much more quality time to spend with Mom? I’m not supposed to worry my kids with my problems, that much I know — but how much does a thoughtful parent hold back? What’s healthy?

I find myself thinking about my parenting goals not in terms of “most wonderful,” but of “least harmful” — when my kids look back on their childhood, I don’t want them to remember a few really great moments amid a bunch of purposely forgotten black X-marks. My hope is not that the once-in-awhile good will be so outstanding that it blots out the bad, but that the bad will be infrequent enough that it fades away naturally. I wonder, sometimes, if I’m succeeding. I also wonder just how screwed up that kind of outlook is.

When your mother is an alcoholic, you learn to doubt yourself.

Mom and I have just finished the last of the golden-brown muffins. We put our empty milk glasses and plates (mine licked clean of crumbs) into the sink, then head upstairs to bed.

I dream of Ma Ingalls in a belted orange sweater, holding a fat, happy gnome in her hand.

If you knew that I had all five of my babies with midwives (three underwater, two in a freestanding birth center and two at home); that I breastfed them on demand, or that they have all slept in my bed along the way, you might draw certain conclusions about my parenting style.

And you might be right. Or you might not. Either way, I’m not putting a label on it.

In a recent post I mentioned an alternative parenting community I used to hang out with when I first went online, and the cruelty and judgment that went on there. I think that behavior was outside the norm: I don’t see this kind of blatant meanness and cult-like behavior going on much on the web anymore (though it’s possible I’m just not looking in the right places).

But being both on the giving and receiving ends of judgment, I’m savvy enough to recognize it even when it’s subtle. And one of the ways I think judging gets perpetuated is through this need to define ourselves with neat little labels that sum up our beliefs, parenting practices, or whatever we are into these days. Because you know what? Once you’ve stuck that label firmly it place, it can be pretty hard to shrug off when it no longer fits.

I really do understand the urge. When I was a newer mom especially, I tried so hard to make some sense of this motherhood thing. One way to do that was by figuring out what kind of mom I was going to be, and then throwing myself into it, heart and soul. Labeling myself was a way of fitting in and exploring who I was. Giving myself a label (“natural”, “attachment parent”, etc) was comforting in a way.

Of course, there was the rotten downside:

* By labeling myself, I limited my options. If you go around calling yourself this or that and then you want to change things up a bit, it’s easy to start worrying about whether it fits with the label, rather than whether it’s the right option for you at the moment. What happens when something on the laundry list no longer works for you?

* By labeling myself, I allowed other people to make assumptions about me. If another mom had had a bad run-in with a rabid “crunchy” group online, they would sometimes assume that I was like that too. Based on experiences they’d had with other people who wore the attachment parent label, they might also assume I a) was extremely permissive b) never left my kids—ever—even to go to the bathroom c) extremely judgmental d) pathologically obsessed with everything my kids e) had given birth alone in the mountains with only a cat as my midwife, and then the cat and I shared the placenta with fava beans on the side.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with labeling techniques or approaches. I think that attachment parenting is a legitimate and lovely parenting style and one that I identify with more often than not (though I really believe it was meant to be a parenting style for babies and very young children, and has become in some cases, twisted and mis-applied by well-meaning folk…but that’s another post for another day). And of course, this isn’t just an attachment parenting thing—I just use that as an example because that’s where my personal experience lies. On the other side of the fence, you could, say, use Ferber methods without being a “Ferberizer”. See the distinction? One word describes a technique. The other slaps a label on a PERSON.

At the end of the day, not that much has changed about the way I parent now and the way I did when my first child was a baby. I still believe strongly in birth choices and favor out-of-hospital birth and midwives for myself. I am very supportive of breastfeeding. I like carrying my babies around. I avoid over-using medications.

But I no longer define MYSELF by the kind of mom I am, or the kind of mom I want to become. And you know what? I’m way better off for it. More flexible, more compassionate, more confident. Definitely a whole lot happier. And maybe even a better mom.

(But not better than the rest of you, of course. )

This entry was inspired by a recent post by Caitlin at Chicago Moms Blog. It’s an edited version of a post I put up about a year and a half ago.