Just Ask Andy

You all know my nephew Andy, yes? He was the one in the baseball uniform. With the ears. And the arm sticking out. Just in case you have Immediate, Short-, and Long-Term Memory Loss like I do, I'll refresh your memory with a new picture:

All right, that wasn't really fair--he doesn't look quite like that anymore, but he's so darn cute in this picture, don'tcha think?? What a poser. Let's try again:

Yes, that's better. Although, in all fairness, he doesn't really walk around screaming like that. He's really a pretty laid back kid. In fact, Andy is a man with peace in his heart about who he is. I know this because, while at the beach, he gave me my new all-time favorite quote. Sitting on the sofa, watching his aunts and cousins pull out their various knitting projects, he hollered in the general direction of his mother,

"Mooooooo-ooooom, will you go get my knitting for me??"

Oh, yes, Andy knits. And after we had a little talk about how moms aren't there to fetch us things, and in fact if there was any fetching to be done it was on the part of the children on behalf of the mothers, I sat in awe at this 9-year-old's complete innocence about those silly gender roles assigned to us by society at large. Because while women can choose from way more career options than just teaching and nursing now (not to mention chopping their own wood and fixing their own cars), men never really got that symbolic bra-burning moment that freed them from their white shirts and ties and 5:00 gin and tonic. And that's a shame. There's a lot to experience out in that big ol' world, and no one should feel limited beyond their own desires.

There are equal parts typical boy to Andy, to be sure. The kid lives to do cool new skateboard moves that result in groovy broken bones and emergency room visits. He likes skulls and naughty words. And lately he's too cool to play with his girl cousins, although he will knit with them. Go figure. I hope with all my heart that he hangs on to this quality of disinterest with society's rules of conduct, and that maybe we can all siphon off a little of it for ourselves.