Letters to Maddie: A case of mistaken identity.

Dearest Maddie,

It would appear as though you had us both going, your father and I!  We assumed (and quite wrongly so) that your rough and tumble ways within the womb gave a sort of inclination towards being a boy.  When we found out about you, so many months ago, we started calling you Little Doodle (a nickname that neither gender nor birth is going to save you from!) and we used masculine pronouns when referring to you, as neither your dad nor myself could bear calling you “it” or “the baby.”

Then, come the 20 week scan, as we hyped ourselves up on the prospect of finally getting to know whether you were a boy or girl, you surprised us by taking the matter into your own hands, and your primly crossed legs prevented us from knowing.

Now that we do know, it will take some getting used to, as these past 34 weeks you have been a “he” in our vocabulary.

So I have a few promises I need to make you, little girl.  I promise to not force gender stereotypes on you, and I hope you will always feel comfortable to be who you want to be, whether that be pretending to be the princess or pretending to be the dragon-slaying knight.  I promise to always encourage you to challenge the still-present gender inequality in our society, and to stand up for what you believe in.  And I promise to raise you as best I can to not buy into the unobtainable standards of “what a woman should look like” fed to us at every turn in our society.  I cannot promise that I will succeed, but I can promise you that I will try my best.

Yesterday afternoon we bought you a pretty sun dress, complete with matching hat.  But I promise you, I also have a Star Trek onesie you will be wearing at times as well.  Boy or girl… you are probably destined to be nerdy… and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Love,

Mom and Dad.