Growing up I was taught to be a girl, mostly. Although I am fine with this, I like being a girl; it doesn’t change the fact that I was raised to be such. Thankfully being a girl in this day in age is not as rigid a placement as it once was. I was surrounded with pink things, clothing, toys etc. I had all the classics of the western world. I had Barbies, My little ponies, care bears and more. I was dressed in dresses, and taught to sit “right”. I was the weaker sex. Though in my case that was not completely because of my gender, I had physical problems to reinforce the idea. Though all this is true I was also allowed to wear pants when I discovered them at 9. I played with all my “girl” toys but I also got to play with my 3 older brother’s toys, when they deemed to allow me to. After sneaking their legos, which was the one thing they deemed off limits entirely, my parents bought me a little lamb “girl” lego set. After that not only did I receive my “girl” toys but I got the “boy” one’s I wanted as well, transformers, cars, G.I Joe’s and Star Wars men and sets too. In fact being a girl in my house I think was mostly great, my brother’s played with so called boy things, while I was allowed to play with boy and girl things. It is weird that in our society when little girl plays with cars and action figures along with her ponies and dolls no one cares, but when a boy starts playing with dolls or ponies they are looked at as weird or “wrong”, I don’t get that, it seems unfair. The one thing I hated was having to dress nice, with uncomfortable shoes and dresses in which I froze in, and sit through painful hair styles when ever we had a party or family function to go to. My brothers just threw on some pants and a nice shirt while I was in pain to look pretty. But I was taught that is what a girl should do. My father always liked all girls to have long hair. He only gave compliments to a girl’s hair if it was long. He still is like this. Even so, he is not a hypocrite, though he always let his preference be known he never enforced it. When I was younger and wanted to cut my hair I pointed out that my brother’s were allowed to ware their hair the way they wanted and the same should be for me. My father was always forced to ware his air a certain way growing up and he hated it! So, when he had sons he always said he would not do that to them, and he conceded that a girl could hate having to ware a certain style of hair as much as a boy so therefore I could do what I wanted, though I just shouldn’t expect not to hear his opinion at least once about how it looked every time I cut it short. Another words, being a girl in my family growing up was a lot like being a boy in that there are a few things expected or at least wanted of your specific gender, but that in the end it’s not that rigid, just a little. I was allowed to be who I wanted to be but I defiantly knew what was preferred before I made a decision. Society more then my family tried and still tries to dictated how I should act as a girl, but my friends and family are the one’s that count to me. All in all I was lucky to grow up the way I did, some people are not so lucky.
