05.26.08

When I was a child, I would often wish I was a boy instead of a girl. I got along better with my brothers than my sister who always wanted to play dolls or house. My name would have been Thomas Henry, one I like a lot better than what I have.

I think making friends would have been easier. Boys are so straightforward. If they get mad, they fight, get it over with and go on. No petty backstabbing.

I would have been able to play little league. They started allowing girls to play just as I was getting too old. I loved playing sports. Knowing the rules made things so much easier.

Puberty. Though I have been blessed with fairly easy periods, it was always a time of panic knowing it might come any day and you might not know it before someone else spotted the signs.

I could have had a paper route. Yes, the papers allowed girls to deliver but not my parents. Instead I got to babysit. I didn't mind watching toddlers and preschoolers. I never liked watching babies. You never knew when the next job was coming. If you had a social life (I didn't), you had to decide between babysitting and fun. But you needed money for fun.

Career. No one would have thought anything about me being an architect or engineer. But being a girl, I was thought to be good in math or else why would I want to do that. No one said that to boys. I also would not have been one of 2 to graduate with a degree in architecture in a class of 20+.

No pantyhose.

I could hang out at bars without a second thought. Nice girls don't go to bars alone.

I could scratch myself in public.

But then again...

I wouldn't be able to indulge in owning several pairs of fun birkenstocks when 1 pair of sneakers would be fine. Though no one would think twice about a guy with large feet.

I wouldn't be able to use the phrase "women problems" when I wanted to get out of something.

I might be scoffed at for my love of gardening and scrapbooking.

I'd have to laugh at fart jokes.

I wouldn't be able to have a good cry. But would I even need to?

I wouldn't be mother to my wonderful boys.