The boy and I are driving back from a morning’s peregrinations — hardware store (my idea, natch), bakery (we both agreed, natch), library (his suggestion) — and we were listening to one of his favorite songs on the Free to Be You and Me album: “When We Grow Up.”
It’s sung by Diana Ross, and here are the lyrics:
When we grow up will I be pretty
Will you be big and strong
Will I wear dresses that show off my knees
Will you wear trousers twice as longWell, I don’t care if I’m pretty at all
And I don’t care if you never get tall
I like what I look like and you’re nice small
We don’t have to change at allHey, when we grow up, will I be a lady
Will you be an engineer
If I have to wear things like perfume and gloves
I can still pull the whistle while you steer{repeat refrain}
When I grow up, I’m gonna be happy
And do what I like to do
Like makin’ noise, and makin’ faces
And makin’ friends like youAnd when we grow up, do you think we’ll see
That I’m still like you, and you’re still like me
I might be pretty, you might grow tall
But we don’t have to change at allI don’t want to change, see, ’cause
I still want to be your friend
For ever and ever and ever
“We don’t have to change at all”– how sweet. How impossible.
As we near home, my sweet boy starts to sing along with it — he of the coiled-spring body energy and the jabbing sword thrusts and the fierce, fast tears and the insistence, this morning, on bringing his sister’s fairy wings and wand with him — and a swirl of contradictory thoughts elbow one another in my head. What a beautiful vision of the future. What a load of malarkey.
Everything’s changing these days; anything’s possible. Think about that tomboy girl you saw on the playground the other day: she was surely loved by her parents, who did her hair like that. My son will be pummeled — like that kid in the middle school a few scant blocks to the north of us; wait, no, like that kid at our daughter’s very own elementary school — the minute he wears his fairy skirt outside the house. “We don’t have to change at all”– how sweet. How impossible.
Change is everywhere, all the time: good, bad, indifferent. Change is what made them — my son, my daughter — emerge from nothing but a nebula of hope and love and trust in our friends’ enormous generosity into two real, actual, living people. Change is also what transformed their oldest cousin from a flesh-and-blood boy — an actual, living person — into a constant but invisible presence in their lives, their youngest, most intense guardian angel.
Change can bring transcendent relief — the materialization of the children you’ve wanted so badly for years and years — and it can be a fast ride in a heavy bus deep into the jaws of hell, no brakes, no seatbelts, and it’s going faster and faster and all you can do is brace for impact and remember about love, if you can. Of course we have to “change at all.” We have no choice. But I can see where it’s such a very sweet dream to the young. It’d be sweet to the old if we didn’t know better.
Still, that knowledge doesn’t keep me from telling my kids I’ll love them for ever and ever and ever, which I used to say to them every so often, thinking about my mother (who art in heaven). And then last year a friend suddenly died, leaving daughters of eight and thirteen, and now I say it always, as the coda to every single call/response (Q: How much do I love you? A: So much. Now, also the Q: And how long will I love you? A: Forever!).
When we saw Michael Jackson singing that song — “When I grow up, I’m gonna be happy” –many of us involuntarily took in a breath.
Free to Be You and Me was also a television special, which our family saw on the big screen at San Francisco’s Castro Theater last Baba’s Day. “When We Grow Up” was sung by the incomparable Roberta Flack and a teenaged, chocolate-skinned Michael Jackson. There we all were in the grande dame movie theater, mostly queer folk and queer friendly and many many queer-headed families. Many of us knew the album, but probably only some had actually seen it in its television special form. It was rendered for a touched-up big-screen showing special for this event. When we saw Michael Jackson singing that song — “When I grow up, I’m gonna be happy” –many of us involuntarily took in a breath. He was still alive then — it was just days away from his death — but of course it was already clear to all of us that this young man was singing of a contentment with himself that would be as fictional as the innocence in so much of his beautiful, beautiful music.
We pull up in front of the house, my boy and me. The song finishes, and he says, “Baba, he can’t be she, though.” I look at him in the rear view mirror and say, “Well, if it feels more right to be she, then yes, he can.” To myself I think: Gwen Araujo. Lawrence King. Jorge Steven Lòpez. I twist around and face him and add: “The point is, there are lots of ways to be a she, and lots of ways to be a he.” That, I believe.
[“When We Grow Up,” over on the Free to Be Foundation’s YouTube channel.]
You asked awhile back what content we liked… When I read this post, I exclaimed (silently to myself), “This is why I read this blog!”
This and the pictures and your big vocabulary words and the politics and your daughter’s spelling…
I never comment bc I never remember my login and password but I was so inspired by this post that I spent 15 minutes trying to login to wordpress. I think I might just remember the info now.
Oh wow. Oh thank you.
Hard times, lately (it’s the rainy season), and getting anything out this week was like pulling teeth (from what mouth, I couldn’t say: mine? fate’s? my kids’? my pocketbook’s?). So thank you for those fifteen minutes, Stacy.
I love your blog so much. This was perfect. I have had an impossible time signing in to comment before. Sorry.
I agree with Stacy! I visit certain blogs on the regular and enjoy each of them in different ways.
Yours always leaves me with a contented feeling. That’s the best way I can describe it. The photography is gorgeous and the words are fulfilling- it really doesn’t get any better.
If I don’t comment each time, it’s only because I’m afraid that I am being redundant. “Beautiful. Perfect. Divine.” Sometimes that’s all I can offer.
Just like after consuming the best dinner ever and you’re too stuffed to move or speak more than a word or two; I just want to enjoy my satiated self.
Stacy took the words right out my mouth.
Thank you all of you.
Welcome, lynondeclarasval! I think I may have actually contributed to confounding you before. When I did the last WordPress upgrade, I think a toggle was switched, making registration a bit harder. Recently I found that out, and switched it back. My apologies for throwing up even higher barriers than the ordinary one keeping the cranky ne’er-do wells at bay.
And raisedq and BeethovenLives, truly, thank you. It’s been fairly paltry pickins at this blog here lately — not my preference. It’s very nice to know that even in the lean times we can and do speak to one another.
Everything everyone else has already said.
You have the ability, like no other, to tug at my heart with your words. Can I make your blog mandatory reading for everybody in the US?
Man, y’all gals are making be blush. And also smile. Which is good, since yesterday I didn’t do a lot of that.
It’s quite something, these truths — and I feel like through this blog and the conversation with you all convivial consÅ“urs (yes: a word; I checked; girl version of confrère) I’ve convinced myself at least that they are truths — that regardless of the pain (confusion, misgivings, hardships) one’s going through, (a) there are others who have been or are now going through the selfsame pains, and (b) sharing them with one another thoughtfully, compassionately, helps. Thank you all for enabling this mutual exchange.
Just maybe I had to wipe a few tears away at the end of this entry, but that is okay. Because I look at my son in much the same way – fear for what the world might bring, fierce pride over the young man he is growing into, worry over day-to-day issues and how he meets each challenge.
All I can say is thank you for sharing your words and pictures! 🙂
copy everything said already
plus this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUBc6-keVIQ
Wow. What a moving song, what a beautiful voice. I have to put that in here so people don’t even have to go anywhere to hear it:
That got me all verklempt.
And nothin’ wrong with that, eh dragon_mom? You’re welcome, and thank you for sharing.
I’ve always just been a lurker, but I just signed up in order to agree that this is EXACTLY why I love this blog.
And folks like you are EXACTLY why I love continuing to write it. Welcome, and thank you.
I envy your commenters, but I also echo them. See. I thought I would have some of my questions answered if I kept reading. You let your little guy where fairy dresses, but also know that the world may not look at him the same way you do. Good. I’ve read several stories about how little guys deal with the flack they get at school, and often they can handle it because they’ve grown up in a secure environment and are ok with themselves.
Hi. Got here via Mama Om. As the loving mom of a gender-neutral girl with dreadlocks I thank you for the comment about the tomboy on the playground. And as a mama who’s never sure how long she’ll be around I get this post. When my eldest was born I made up a song for her, the end of which goes, “…and I’ll love you for rest of my life.” I knew even then that I couldn’t promise to love her all of her life.