My wife is upset because Ashli has officially categorized herself as a “Tomboy.” I thought it was cute when she said it, but my wife completely freaked out. She is afraid that being a tomboy will damage her socially for the rest of her life. I am getting a lot of the blame for this as well. My wife states that she was a Girly-Girl up until she was four and my wife started working nights and I had the kids alone during the evenings. My wife has told me that I am not a good influence on them (yes, it does make me mad).
I don’t see anything wrong with tomboys. It could be a phase, or it could be that she just likes to be more rough and tumble. Either way is fine with me. As a father, the girly-girls are cute and cuddly, but a father doesn’t really bond with that type of girl. The girly-girl, in my opinion, is more prone to Freudian or Oedipal thought processes because they feel that they are the princess and need a prince to save them. At pre adolescence, that prince is often the father. Yuck! Ashli, doesn’t need saving; she wants to be the hero and do the saving.
It isn’t as though she is an all out tomboy either. She has grown to not like pink so much and she hates the Disney Princesses, but she still likes Hello Kitty and littlest pet shop and pretty much anything else that is cute. She still wears dresses and skirts, but she does so while riding bikes or doing the monkey bars. She loves playing catch with me. She loves all animals, even reptiles and bugs. Her favorite TV shows are Pokemon, Teen Titans, and Dr. Who (she has watched blink about 500 times). She has made it clear that we are not to get her Barbie dolls for Christmas. She wants a DS with Zelda.
I can’t seem to comfort my wife on this one. I don’t understand where her fear is coming from. I don’t think that I am even the right sex to understand where the fear is coming from. I understand that she wants a girly-girl to dress up and make look pretty and that Ashli often has messed up hair from running and playing. But, Ashli still loves to dress up and look pretty. Maybe culturally I am unable to understand her fear. I don’t know how tomboys are treated in Korea or if she even understands what the term implies. I think she might consider it to mean transgendered. That worries her. She wants normal kids that grow up to be normal (yet exceptionally smart, beautiful, and successful) adults. I think tomboys are normal and she does not.
When my wife told Ashli that she had to change, Ashli rebelled. Ashli said that it was who she was and she couldn’t and didn’t want to change. This turned into a shouting match between the two of them about being who you are. Of course, my wife was mad at me for this. I don’t do all that phony self esteem crap they sell in schools about being perfect just the way you are, but I do tell them that it is okay to be different from other kids. I mean, they are half Korean, so they are always going to be different from other kids in school. I have to teach them to be proud of their differences and not worry about what other people might say.
I think my wife is taking the wrong track. Instead of discouraging being a tomboy, she should encourage girly-girl behavior. It would be as easy as having a make up party, or having her put on a fashion show. I am sure there are other things she could do too. My wife says I need to change the way I am around her to get her to change and that I shouldn’t be so male with her. But, when Ashli has played dolls or Polly pocket with me in the past, I got noticeably bored really fast. On the other hand when we wrestle in the living room it can go on for hours. My wife doesn’t really play with the girls. She is more concerned about education, so she does a lot of work with them. If they want to play they have to do it on their own.
My wife doesn’t see it yet because she is so young, but Ally is following directly in Ashli’s footsteps. She wants to be like her big sister. She gets played with in a rough and tumble manner and watches her sisters Tae Kwon Do class. If Ashli is wrestling with me, Ally jumps right in too. Ally still loves princesses and pink, but how long before Ashli’s distaste for them rubs off. Yes in a soon to be future, we have two tomboys and then my wife will really go crazy.
