Daddy, I’m a hooker!

Ok, that isn’t exactly what my 5 year old daughter said to me, but it is very close.  Before I give the exact quote though, I should share a little about my daughter.  I won’t post any pictures, but if you could have seen her walking to her grandfather’s pickup truck with her long blond hair wearing her pink flowered dress with matching pink cowgirl hat and princess sandals you would have said:  there is one beautiful Texas girl! I know because I hear this every time I take her somewhere.  But you probably wouldn’t guess that once she got into her grandfather’s truck her first questions were does this truck have four wheel drive? (yes) and can we drive through mud?

So I’m in our living room reading while she is playing on the floor in one of her pretty dresses when I hear:

Hi, I’m a hooker.

It was a good book, but something in the back of my mind made me think maybe I should check into that.  I looked up to see that the dialog came from the action figure driver of her toy Land Rover.  He was in the process of connecting a winch hook onto one of the other trucks which I gather had become stuck in the mud.  At this point I almost decided to just go back to my book, but instead I decided to explain that hooker wasn’t a good word.  Why? “Well, hooker is a word for a bad woman”.  But I’m just playing, and these are all men.  Strange feeling to lose an argument to a 5 year old, but I’m getting used to it.  So I decided to make sure she knew that women could drive trucks too.  I know, but the way I’m playing they are all men.  The last line was delivered with the expression reserved for when a grown up isn’t listening.

I let the issue drop and later shared the incident with my wife.  After we stopped laughing she asked the question I knew she would:  Does she understand that women can drive trucks? Yup.  Gave me a look when I explained it even.  Still, my wife was troubled by this so she made it a point to have a talk with our daughter later.  I’m confident she received the same look I did.

But we both deserved the look.  We weren’t listening.  She knows she can be who she wants to be, and she chooses to play trucks with men driving them.  She also loves to play with her massive collection of matchbox cars, build Lincoln logs and Legos, and play big game hunting adventure with her Barbies.  Big game hunting is one of her favorites, because it incorporates Barbies, trucks, guns, animals, and (after the hunt) cooking.  What could be more fun?  Well, watching daddy unplug a toilet is more fun but that is another story.

What tickles me when I think of the whole exchange is the fact that:

1. Neither my wife nor I are feminists;  accuse my wife of being a feminist and you will have a fight on your hands.  Yet we felt compelled to lecture our daughter on something she clearly already understands.
2. She assessed the situation with the utmost clarity.  She was free to play in whatever way she wanted, but she had observed from real life that almost no women actually want to drive trucks.  Real life daddies and grandpas drive trucks, mommies drive cars or minivans.  She didn’t feel the need to force a female character into the story just for appearance sake.

I truly hope she takes her current combination of openness and realism with her as she grows up.  The fact is, there is practically nothing she won’t have the opportunity to do.  At the same time, she will need to be realistic about the trade-offs involved and what her desires really are.

But as she grows up, feminists will make her feel guilty for not driving the truck.  They will want her to be a hooker.  This infuriates me.