Biological and otherwise SheSaid: Haddayr Copley-Woods’ toddler prefers Daddy – and that’s fine with her.
A few weeks ago, my husband, Jan, signed me up for an Early Childhood Family Education class on Saturdays. "It'll be good for Éiden to get some classroom interaction," he said. "And, um," he paused delicately, "maybe you could, you know, pick up some tips."
Jan tells me all the time I am a terrific mother. But I am not the stay-at-home parent with a background in early childhood education that he is. I often feel lost when Jan is away and I am left alone with the boys.
So when the time came for the children to play in one room and the adults to talk in another, and Éiden decided to shriek mightily, I was not surprised. His father would have had some sort of trick, I told myself self-pityingly. I sat in the room next door and listened to my child howl as I sipped tea from a Styrofoam cup and looked at the other parents with a feigned air of unconcern.
Éiden continued to bellow forlornly next door for 30 minutes.
The next week he calmed down as I left-mollified by the presence of his big brother and a sweet snack.
The adult discussion topic was different parenting styles, and our teacher started us off with what is turning out to be his favorite phrase. "Children at a certain age," he said, "prefer their mothers for various reasons, biological and otherwise."
I twitched. Something seemed wrong here. The thought made me feel as if a 12-ton weight of history and forced obligation had landed on my head. It felt part and parcel with The Hope Of The Race Lies With the Gentler Sex. It made me feel itchy.
But he slid the phrase so smoothly into his speech that I imagined perhaps he was right; I was preferred for reasons biological and otherwise. What did I know about parenthood, anyway? Why should I look for feminist objections to our perfectly nice teacher? I was here to learn. I was not raised to flinch in the face of Timeless Truth.
But in the middle of the animated discussion on how Kids Should Never Have a Speck of Sugar, during which everyone nodded enthusiastically and no one confessed that they ever gave their kid a freezer pop, the door opened.
It was Éiden, sucking mightily on the Nuk I gave him for comfort, looking around the room, his chubby chin bravely held high. He clung to his teacher's hand. "He wanted to see this room," she said. He surveyed us all and walked solemnly in a circle, taking in the chairs, the table with the donuts, the coffee maker and the rows of adult knees.
I didn't want him to see me, demand to be held, and refuse to let go-so I tried to look bored and uninteresting. I avoided his eyes and tried to will away the undeniable biological tug of destiny he was no doubt feeling.
I shouldn't have worried. He was looking for something, all right. But I wasn't it. I smiled to myself. Here was my son-living proof that what our teacher was saying was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Éiden was looking for Daddy.
Finding him absent, he nodded to me in a businesslike fashion and went to go play quietly in the next room with the other kids.
I know I should be upset about this. I have read of the anguish working dads often feel at being second-best-at seeing cozy domestic scenes at the end of the day and wondering where they fit in. But it pleases me. I am not a gender essentialist, and neither is my son. Each time Éiden reaches to Jan for comfort when he falls and scrapes his knee, each time he forlornly asks me, "Daddy go car-car?" on one of Jan's rare days off, I am happy. Biology as destiny? Nah.
Don't get me wrong; Éiden loves me. He rushes up to me when I come home from work, all dimpled smiles and moist kisses. He knows my kisses have the power to banish owies. He laughs when I tickle him and buries his face in my shoulder (carefully covering it with boogers) each morning before I leave for work. He even cries sometimes when I leave, dutifully.
But after three hours away from his dad? He held my hand and toddled cheerfully out to the car. "Dada?" he asked happily. "Home?"
"Yes," I told him, starting the engine. "Dada. Home."
Haddayr Copley-Woods is a mom and writer living in Powderhorn Park.
