"I wanted my son to reject masculine stereotypes. Then he fell in love with tractors"

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I wanted my son to reject masculine stereotypes. Then he fell in love with tractors

All my life, I’ve prided myself on blurring gender lines. But when my young son started to gravitate toward the very things I’d shunned, I wasn’t sure what to do.

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After turning 2 years old, my son, Avishai, started demanding that he only wear tractor shirts, and my mind spiraled into darkness. I catastrophized worst-case scenarios, imagining a world where he fell for everything stereotypically manly. I envisioned him on a football field, barreling through mega-muscled opponents. Imagined him waxing a sports car on a warm summer day. I have always judged other guys who seemed boxed in by masculinity, but 3 ½ years ago, when I became a stay-at-home dad, my bias skyrocketed.

My son was born in Albany, New York, on the bedroom floor of the apartment I shared with my wife. Minutes after his arrival, we took turns cuddling him against our bare chests. While the midwife and her assistant cleaned up, my wife, always one to joke, even soon after giving birth, bragged that she had a connection to our new baby that I could never attain because men couldn’t bond with babies like women could.

Her comment stabbed into me, but I feared she was right. To me, femininity was connected to empathy and kindness while masculinity equated to being frigid. Men didn’t hug. Men didn’t say I love you. Men were angry. Aggressive. Inept as parents. I became determined. I was going to create a bond stronger than any parent had ever achieved, but I told myself that to do so I needed to distance myself from anything deemed masculine.

I immediately cut my hours at my social work gig, taking on the role of caregiving full time. It made sense because my wife made more money and I was accustomed to being around kids; it was what I did for a living.

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