The more our family grew, and the more jobs and school demands settled on Jace's shoulders, the more our lives had to make room and adjustments. Jace took a great job in fiber optics and he began to really feed off of the advancements of technology. He was learning more and more every day and helping to advance the world that spoke to his passions! I was learning more and more about the boy Jace during this time. He would tell me about moments of his life that he loved, and things he really enjoyed. The more he shared, the more I could see the little boy Jace, now in the man that stood before me, Jace.
When we brought our second child, our first "boy child" into the world, it started to click in my mind more and more. Our firstborn was a girl. I would watch her play, and love to see her joy and happiness. I understood her. I could watch her play and it was familiar to me, I could relate to her mind and how it worked. When Jace Jr. was born, I would watch him play. I could watch him play for hours and constantly be entertained! I remember thinking "what is going on in that mind of his?" It was so foreign to me. It was fascinating! Now that I was accountable for nurturing that mind, it became of utmost import to me. Both children were so curious, so adventurous, and so moldable. I could watch my husband and understand more and more how his mind worked and try to steer my little ones.
When I was a little girl and all throughout my life, all I wanted to do was become a wife and a mother. I would play with dolls and stuffed animals and spent my free time imagining day to day life with babies all around me, and taking care of their basic needs. I laugh now that I never had the creativity to stretch into REALITY more and pretend what the day to day chores of cooking and cleaning and business would entail! But at my core, what I wanted to be when I grew up...I got to play as a child.
What do boys play when they are small? Cops and robbers, Cowboys and Indians, GI Joe's.
How many of these boys get to grow up and DO what they played as boys?
I dug into a few statistics to see what the actual numbers look like.
GI Joe's = Active-duty service members now comprise less than 1% of all U.S. adults.
Cowboys and Indians = By the 70s, the "cowboy and indian" genre was waning. By the early 80s, it was way more common to just play “war.” Vietnam, Cold War, or even “terrorist” themes were most common.
While the prospect of girls being able to grow up and DO what they played as children looks drastically different!
I know this is a very generalized observation as I've seen plenty of little boys playing with dolls, and being good daddies, and plenty of little girls getting dirty in the slums of crime fighting and keeping pace with the boys. But, no matter how you look at it, their reality is much different as they grow.
This realization really broke my heart for my sweet husband. It also really helped me look at my children's futures in a different light. Because of the roles we were brought up in, and we mirrored in our life, the options to "play out" his creativity got smothered. The ARMY could have been a good avenue for him, but he was steered in another direction. I can see how these outlets and passions NEED to be found somewhere else to scratch that itch that's deep inside them.
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