I hid the small white box under my bed. In it was a picture frame adorned with pale pink ceramic ribbons and gold-colored stars. I was saving it for my daughter.
When I knew that I was pregnant with my third child, hope sprang within me for the daughter I longed to dress in ribbons and lace: the doll-loving, large-eyed little girl who would sit still while I braided her hair for school, and a few years later would let me help her decide on a prom dress. This would be the girl who would wear my favorite earrings when she accompanied me to mother-daughter luncheons and when I watched proudly as she was inducted into the National Honor Society. She would be my ally; I would understand her.
I already was the mother of two beautiful boys. And a voice within me chided me for the arrogance that afforded me the notion that these wonderfully healthy boys were somehow not enough. I felt guilty for having such a vain, shallow wish when my sons were true gems.
I empathize with women desperate for children as I, too, had suffered an emptiness before I was blessed with Weldon, now 5, and Brendan, 3. And each time I was told I was pregnant I cried with gratitude. But for the length of each pregnancy, I couldn’t quash the wish for a daughter.
For my daughter I saved my Baby Secret doll-she’s the one whose lips moved as she implored, “Hold me close and whisper.” But when I gave birth to sons, I foolishly retained the notion that gender leanings are not inherent but imposed by social conditioning. So I placed the doll in the boys’ room with their stuffed animals. Weldon never touched it. Brendan chewed off the feet.
For the last five years I have rearranged my prejudices of parenthood. I love my boys and give them what they need, but in certain ways they don’t want what I need to give. I have pictured a dollhouse in the corner of the family room-the kind I had growing up, with wood shingles and real glass windows and carpeting on the tiny stairs. Instead my boys and I play monsters, aliens and cowboys, and I duck when the trains are thrown.
I have become accustomed to the energy of two small boys-how they love to fight and scream and feel the wind on their faces. They love me-I’m sure-but it’s not with the sense of similarity that I imagine it would be with a daughter. It’s “Daddy” the boys flip for when he walks in the door.
The house in which I grew up was definitely skewed female. My parents had four daughters and two sons, and we girls always won the votes on television shows and most everything else. I adored my father and loved my brothers, but it was my mother-and sisters-I wanted to be near. Because of my mother I love orchids and starched white linen pillows. I never saw myself as a mother without a daughter looking to me for the same things.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with my third-and likely our last-child, I underwent an ultrasound test. Learning the gender of my child was optional, but I wanted to know if I was carrying my daughter. Walking down the clinic hallway for the ultrasound, I told myself that these were the last seconds when I could wish for a daughter, the last narrow window of possibility when I could imagine using the pink ceramic frame hidden under my bed.
I am now the mother of a third son. Before he was born last month, my husband, Walter, and I named him Colin Michael. And I don’t wish him to be anyone other than who he is. He is my gift.
It’s true my sons never will really be like me. But perhaps what I do for them is as profound, only less obvious. They don’t imitate me, but I am influential. I wish now only to be their mother. I’ve given the pink ceramic picture frame to a friend who has four sons and a daughter. She loves it.
