My son is only about three years old, so his experience with love is very limited. Beyond his mother and I, family, and caregivers, he doesn't have that much experience with love yet. However, I must say, that he does have a slightly different relationship with his girl friends at day care than his boy friends. He was regaling us the other day with the gender of each and every person in his immediate world. Mommy is a girl, Daddy is a boy, Miss Cayr is a girl, etc. Then he got to his friends. He said that Mark is a boy, and Anya is a girl. Then we asked about Margie. Is Margie a girl? He said, "Margie isn't a girl! Margie's my friend!"
This spoke volumes to us. Should we be paranoid about how he thinks of women in his world? Am I raising my son to carry on the sexist banner that I may or may not have carried as a young man? Should we stop the annual trip to Hooters that we take with Grandpa and cousin Parker at Christmastime? How is he assimilating the roles of "boys" and "girls" in his minimal-experience world?
At the end of the day, my wife and I came to the conclusion that this is something that we should be aware of, but not necessarily something that we should be concerned about, since he has very strong women role models in his life, and that my sexist bends are more for humor than anything else, and that those would be relatively easy to explain to a three year old, since the jokes are coming from the mentality of an eight year old, instead of a 30-something year old.
His most obvious example of love, however, is how his mother and father love him and each other. I met my wife while I was studying abroad in college. I went to one of the only all male colleges in the country, Wabash College, in Crawfordsville, Ind. Every time I tell people that it was an all male college, they inevitably ask me how I could do that, and I tell them that I wouldn't change a thing about my college experience. It was unbelievably fun, while at the same time providing me the opportunities to focus on my studies that other co-ed institutions were not able to offer.
When I was able to take my second semester of my junior year to study abroad, I chose London to study theater. On my first day in London, the entire group went on a bus tour to get us "acclimated to the city." We stopped at the River Thames to take pictures of Big Ben and the houses of Parliament. I happened to notice that if I went down the staircase at the bridge we were on, I could get a better shot. When I headed down there, I met a girl who was on the same program as I was, Lisa. She was from Iowa, and I was from Indiana, and we exchanged pleasantries. I moved back, and took a picture of the houses of Parliament. In the corner of that picture is my future wife, although, I didn't know it at the time.
We spent the next semester getting to know each other, and just having an amazing and carefree time overseas. The year after that we spent having a long distance relationship over our senior year in college. Shortly after graduation we moved to Chicago. After living together for about two years, I went outside to clear my head, and I realized that I didn't want to wake up in the morning without her, or that I couldn't imagine my life without her. Within one month of that epiphany, I had bought a ring, asked her father for his daughter's hand in marriage, and asked my wife to marry me. Almost nine years later, I am blogging about our three year old son, and I couldn't love my wife any more now, than I did when I asked her to marry me. She is the love of my life, my balance, my support, my everything, And I am forever grateful that I am on this journey of parenthood with her.
Did you meet your "love" in an unconventional manner?
Has your child shown signs of "love?"
Has your partner "completed you" in your experience of parenthood?
Ryan is a new Yahoo! Shine Parenting Guru. When not blogging, he enjoys taking his son to the park, and instilling in him a love of all things college basketball.
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