A Tale of Girls and Boys

Once upon a time, there were two little girls in a loving family. Life was wonderful, except for one thing—playtime was sorely lacking. How could one dance around like Ginger Rogers if there was no masculine partner? How could one cook and cradle plastic dolls if there was no precocious, pint-sized “Daddy” to play house with? Of course, their Papa filled in when he could, but he wasn’t available for the 10 AM playtime, the 1 PM playtime, and the 3 PM playtime. Then, along came another girl—and there were three to hopscotch, swing with, pour tea for, and dress up together. Pink and ribbons and braids and dolls abounded, with nary a car or ball in sight. Then, along came another girl. And friends stoutly accused Mommy and Daddy of lying about the gender, sure that a boy must be hidden amongst those pink blankets. The three older sisters had prayed for this girl, and loved her even more when she arrived. She was practically perfect in every way, and by then, all had gotten accustomed to substituting a girl when playing house.
Still, however, they decided to go to the source—God—and pray for another baby—only this time, unlike the last time, they would specifically request a boy. Nine, spellbinding months passed, until…a boy! He had arrived. The girls dressed him in blue, held him on their shoulders as a dancing partner, and showered him with so much love that he didn’t even think to pity himself for being the youngest in a very feminine family. Occasionally, leftover bits of pink found their way onto his personage, but in general, he remained very much a mystery to his sisters—a boy, in every way possible.
Emboldened by their past successes, these perky girls went to God again, positive that their brother needed a masculine playmate. Providence dictated that another boy would indeed come. Years later, these boys come in handy to their sisters. They ask advice for dressing—which always brings a flutter to the sisters’ feminine hearts—they tease the sisters, but not too often—which keeps the sisters modest—and the brothers are always available to rescue them from dead mice, dead birds, dead bugs, or any other deceased thing.However, these boys—they’re also perplexing. Why on earth, the sisters wonder, would male children suddenly jump on top of each other and start pummeling each other—“sparring” as they call it, for fun? How does this even make sense? The sisters also cannot understand why boys insist on tucking everything in—shirts, sweaters, vests, ties, pajama tops, and the like are frequently victims despite the sisters’ attempts to enlighten their brothers about respective tucked-in events and tucked-out events. Finally, boys seem to be born with an automatic dislike for kisses, and reject their sisters' attempts to reform them.
Despite their quirks, however, these brothers make the best dance partners, stand-in daddies, and protectors a girl could ever want. The sisters are doing their very best to make their rough-and-tumble brothers into gentlemen, with both success and failure. That time when a sister and a brother approached a door to a clothing store and stood there looking at each other, with the girl hoping to encourage her brother to do the gentlemanly thing, and the brother thinking who-knows-what…that probably wasn’t so successful (especially since it was a double set of doors and the brother failed at both sets…on the way in and out)! Right after that, however, the sister took the brother out to get ice-cream…and—although she still can’t quite get a grasp on the masculine mind—she thinks he would have opened that door for her, if it hadn’t been automatic.
Then there was that time, when, walking on their road, one of the sisters explained to her littlest brother that gentlemen walk on the side nearest to the road to protect the ladies. Fascinated, he dutifully followed the right side of her personage all the way home.

These boys—these cello-playing, violin-playing, firemen-wannabe, Einstein-rivaling, soon-to-be-gentlemen boys…they’re going to make two women very happy someday. For now, though, they are making four girls extremely happy. And, as it turns out, while the girls are busy doing their womanly deeds and trying to turn their brothers into men, they don’t even realize that “their” little boys have been turning them into women all along.

First picture by Sandra Kuck

Remaining pictures by Norman Rockwell, taken from Art.com.