BUCKING THE SYSTEM: SHOULD BE NO DIFFERENCE IN BRINGING UP SONS OR DAUGHTERS

I'd make a good mother to a daughter.

At least, that's what any number of people tell me when they find out I'm not planning to increase my family size.

This has been an especially popular topic this week, what with our friends Michelle and Dereck bringing little Derius O'Neal Perry into the world Tuesday morning.

Young Darius marks the sixth boy amongst our small group of friends, and number seven is expected in a couple of months from another branch of the friendship tree. The four girls I consider my nieces are getting a little tired of all the testosterone and are threatening mutiny if another girl isn't brought into the picture fairly soon.

If all goes as planned, I won't be the happy mother. In fact, I'm one mom who's content with not having brought a daughter into the world.

It's not that I don't like girls, because I do. However, as I often tell people, I have enough problems with my own hair, makeup and clothing without trying to help somebody else with theirs.

"Every mother needs a daughter," people claim when they hear my reasoning. "Who's going to take care of you when you get old?"

Hopefully, I'll be able to take care of myself until the day I die, preferably in my sleep in my own bed. But if that's not the case, I'd like to think I've raised responsible young men who are more than capable of helping their mother in her last days.

Why is it people don't think young men are capable of that? I've heard all about "loving your sons and raising your daughters," but that just doesn't fly with me.

Maybe it's because my parents had two girls but made sure we were capable of living without the presence of a man. Not only was I taught to run tillers and lawn mowers, but my dad also made sure I could identify various tools and knew where the breaker box was.

I was given a car after getting my driver's license, but I wasn't allowed to drive until I'd shown Dad I knew how to check the oil and change a tire without any help. And it was I who taught my husband how to drive a manual transmission rather than the other way around.

Sure, they raised me, but I saw just as many boys who learned all the "girl" skills my parents also shared with me. It was nothing for my friend George to be on dish duty, and Juri and Jerry learned to clean toilets with the best of us. And then there was Uncle Mac, who is still one of the best cooks I know.

I think raising daughters is overrated and sons are often underrated. I plan to teach my boys to be responsible young men who respect every woman, from their mother on down. I want them to be capable of doing their own laundry, changing baby diapers, cooking an edible meal and paying their own bills.

I also want them to be able to express their feelings appropriately, whether we're talking about anger or love or pride. I don't want them to be remote and unreachable, but neither will I teach them to be pushovers or "Mama's boys."

In short, I want them to be independent young men who benefit from relationships but are not dependent on me or any other woman for their livelihood.

A son is raised to be a man, just as a daughter is raised to be a woman. There's no law that says you can't love and raise them equally.

Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.