Our household is liberal, and we never distinguished between raising a boy and a girl. Our daughter, who was six years older, was coming into her own while my son was growing up. He was raised alongside his very gender-rights-aware sister. I don’t recall ever sitting him down to discuss how he should interpret the toxic world of masculinity around him or how he should avoid falling into the vortex of the expected male stereotype. It was more about how we, as a family, responded to the world around us, especially the gender issues we faced. Now that he is 23, looking back, I feel, there was a slow and organic process unfolding within the family that empowered him to understand how to identify as a male.
My son is dyslexic, and his school experience was filled with challenges and heartaches. In his early years, he attended a conservative co-educational school that had difficulty addressing children’s learning differences. His first awareness of his gender likely occurred in the first grade when he pecked his classmate on the cheek sitting next to him, who happened to be a girl. The class teacher mentioned it during the parent-teacher meeting and seemed noticeably disturbed. We felt a bit shaken by the teacher’s response to this incident and explained that we are very physical at home — hugging and kissing are ways we show affection in our family, and nothing more should be inferred from it for a six-year-old boy. We believed the teacher might have also spoken to our son about this, although he hadn’t mentioned it to us. We brought it up with him a few days later, and he seemed not to remember what really happened — looking perplexed by our question. We faced a dilemma about whether we should unpack the possibilities of the social implications of this kind of public act for a little boy. We decided against it.
The second episode occurred in third grade. By then, he had many friends, including boys and girls. One day, we received an urgent call from the school to come in for a meeting concerning our son. We found ourselves in the company of two sets of parents of the boys from our son’s group. The boys were playing “doctor-doctor”, where the patient was a girl classmate who lay down on the desk while the three boys acted as doctors — one inspecting her with a stethoscope, the other administering an injection in her hand. The third was an assistant to the doctors. Our son was one of the “doctors”. All was fun until a teacher walked into the room and was aghast. She took the students to the principal’s office, turning the situation into something that amounted to an unpardonable act committed by the boys against the girl. The parents of the boys were summoned and told about the heinous crime committed by their offsprings.
Later, at home, I found my son flummoxed, wondering what the big deal was since everyone, including the girl classmate, was having fun. He was eight or nine years old at the time. We thought we must ask him what he thought of the incident and if their classmate felt intimidated. He had no firm answer but insisted it was just a game, and the girl participated willingly. We felt the incident first had to be rescued from the clutches of the prejudiced morphing, which the school administration had done, and that it wasn’t a crime which needed a punishment. But we thought it was time to explain consent, the overwhelming physical proximities and societal conditioning to interpret such incidents. We tried our best not to add much value or bias. In the end, he listed the ailments the “doctors” diagnosed, and we all laughed heartily.
Very early in our son’s life, we realised that the gender stereotypes presented by the world will shape how he makes sense of things as he grows up. He needs to learn to connect with himself and be confident that, despite the pressures the outside world places on him, he will not question his values or his identity.
He grew up accompanying me on my wildlife filmmaking shoots and demonstrated a keen eye for photography. Given his dyslexia and academic struggles, photography seemed to him a liberating form of expression. It wasn’t long before we, as professional wildlife filmmakers, admired his images and videos of tigers and leopards, some of which were framed and displayed on the school walls. He found his calling, and his confidence grew from the traction and admiration he received from his peers and teachers. He later studied fashion photography at a college in the UK and is now an emerging fashion-art photographer.
He learned to cook for himself while living in a self-catering university residence. With a father who was a poor role model — someone who seldom entered the kitchen and got repeatedly ticked off by his daughter and partner — he drew inspiration from the women in his life: His mother and sister, who range from experts to passionate cooks. Now, he prepares the occasional Sunday lunch or meals for our friends. This, an interesting reversal of a gender stereotype without any external nudges or cajoling from the family, did not go unnoticed by me. A few months ago, he broke up with his girlfriend, whom he met at university. We sat him down and asked if he wanted to share how he and his friend handled the breakup and whether he was aware of and sensitive to her feelings.
Yes, we were aware that we were raising a boy. Without being overly didactic about gender codes, we tried to create a lived experience of family values through gendered perspectives to view the world. The only thing I remember discussing with him during his teenage years was that he should nurture the woman within him to be a good man. All men have a woman inside; the more we become aware of the love, emotions, wisdom, empathy, and sensitivity within, the better human beings we become. I am not sure how much he absorbs this, but this may be the only thing I have actively conveyed to him.
In my view, to raise well-rounded boys, women provide essential role models within a family. Boys often learn more from them than from their male counterparts. How do women and girls respond to men and fathers when they err? Does the family perpetuate traditional role stereotypes, or is there a blend depending on who excels at what? Our son’s recollection of his parents supporting him through dyslexia will always highlight both parents equally contributing to his progress. Both parents engaging with him during challenging school days and at parent-teacher meetings, addressing his emotional needs and attending to his medical requirements significantly shaped his understanding of gender equality, emphasising that the individual matters more than gender.
The writer is a filmmaker, writer and teacher. He is a father to a daughter who is 29 and a son who is 23
