“I believe that you have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage.” – Brene Brown
Early yesterday morning there was a fly in my daughter’s room. It woke her up early with its buzzing and between her efforts to get it and to get me to get it, my son was awakened early. Which is why my kids were grumpy last night. When I told my daughter to stop taking the toys away from my son, she said, “I know, I know, I’m the worst kid.” And when I told my son to stop picking the flowers and leaves off the plants in the planters, he lay on the ground drumming his hands and fists. In my observations of these little people, it’s pretty consistent that my daughter internalizes negative feelings while my son externalizes them.
I don’t have a strong belief when it comes to male and female energies. I was brought up to believe that I could be whatever I wanted and so I got my degree in electrical engineering and climbed mountains as a hobby even though both were male-dominated activities. Now I’m a single parent combining the traditional roles of mom and dad and I don’t think much about making a distinction. So it is with complete fascination that I watch these two kids come out with different ways of being.
It made me think of a generalized progression of how we can develop into our stereotypical males and females from where we start. For boys who are taught not to express their emotions through thumping their hands on the floor, they can become stoic and unexpressive. For girls who want to avoid the pain of turning their feelings inward, they can start trying to become perfect.
This reminds me of a fascinating passage I read from Canadian psychologist and author, Jordan Peterson who argues that it’s the thousands years of evolution that has created the conditions for the male and female psyches.
“Women are choosy maters … It is for this reason that we all have twice as many female ancestors as male (imagine that all the women who have ever lived averaged one child. Now imagine that half the men who have ever lived have fathered two children, if they had any, while other half fathered none). It is Woman as Nature who looks at half of all men and says, “No!” For the men, that’s a direct encounter with chaos, and it occurs with devastating force every time they are turned down for a date. Human female choosiness is also why we are very different from the common ancestor we shared with our chimpanzee cousins, while the latter are very much the same. Women’s proclivity to say no, more than any other force, has shaped our evolution into the creative, industrious, upright, large-brained (competitive, aggressive, domineering) creatures that we are.”
12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson
That extremely long view argues that there isn’t much I can do as a parent to affect the expression of the male and female energies and I’m not sure that I agree with that. In wanting my kids to develop as authentic, healthy and kind beings and good citizens of the Universe, I can’t just throw in the towel and chalk it up to human nature. So I’m borrowing from sociologist and researcher Brene Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability, Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and Dr. Dan Siegel’s work on brain integration and regulation, and developmental biologist John Medina’s work to build up our ability to name our emotions, develop resilience from shame and failure and work on walking through vulnerability to arrive at courage. I believe we can work towards being whole-hearted beings regardless of gender and I’m sticking with that.. and getting a good night’s sleep!
Surprised By Joy 