When I Had To Talk To My Son About How He’s Important Too #InternationalGirlChildDay

On October 11 every year, we celebrate the girl child and address issues  facing by almost half of the population of the Earth because of gender. I hope the relevant issues raised on this day continue to be addressed and not become another excuse for special discounts, spa treatments and chocolates like it happens on Women’s day.

A child , whether a son or a daughter is a blessing. So when my little boy asks me why special day for girls , I did not know how to translate feminism to him who had no part to play in building patriarchy.

I never knew I would be advocating for girls. I just wanted to be the best advocate for my boys and somehow I thought I cannot talk for both boys and girls. But, at this moment when I looked at my son eagerly waiting for more explanation, I realised how wrong I was.

“So, on this day are boys inferior to girls”? He asked.

I sat down with him and told him that it is not about giving importance to any one gender, it is about both genders respecting each other and doing away with stereotyping gender roles.

He said ok, and ran down to play. I really don’t know what he understood but  I came to a conclusion that we cannot educate girls about their rights in isolation. We need to educate our boys too.

I am glad that we have begun to raise our daughters more like our sons but it will never work until we raise our sons more like our daughters.

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We are more likely to tell our daughters they can be anything they want to be but we don’t do the same for our sons. Boys are discouraged from pursuing anything that is considered feminine.

We should not stop our boys from expressing their emotions.We should stop saying ‘boys don’t cry’.

We should allow him to be himself, dress the way he wants, do what he wants without belittling his choice by calling it feminine

We should teach him to take care of himself. He should know how to cook and how to handle everything at home and not depend on his partner

We should teach him that he can also take care of the others at home and it is not only the women’s duty to take care

We should teach him ‘no’ means ‘no’. Silence also means ‘no’ only ‘yes’ means ‘yes’.

They are strong but we have to teach them to show their strength to acknowledge their emotions

We have to teach them how to be tough enough to stand up to intolerance.

Then, maybe someday we can really say that we are bringing up boys and girls equally and there is nothing great about it because it’s normal and that’s how it should be.

Image via Pixabay

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