But Who Will Teach Her Football?

Channel-surfing last night, I stumbled upon a basketball game, and settled in to watch. It was Denver vs. Dallas; at first, I paid more attention to Denver, because of my misplaced affection for Allen Iverson (why did I not know the Sixers traded him?) AND because apparently Dikembe Mutumbo plays/played for them at some point, and I have fond memories of him missing a goddamned free throw and sending that first playoff game into overtime WHEN WE COULD HAVE JUST BEAT THE GODDAMNED LAKERS IN REGULAR PLAY. TELL ME WHY AN EIGHT-FOOT TALL ATHLETE MISSES A FREE THROW? I'M FIVE-THREE AND MY FREE THROW PERCENTAGE IS BETTER THAN THAT. However, after about ten minutes, I settled my attentions on the fact that Dallas has a white boy who can play. The problem with watching basketball while trying to waste time on the internet work is that I usually watch ball on mute, so as not to have to deal with play-by-play. Really, ball games should be watched with company, so that you all have your eyes the same direction and are talking about something else. And possibly eating a cheesesteak.

But, being me, I started thinking about masculinity. I don't have any worries about not giving my child a 'male role model.' There will be a bunch of those around: Uncle, another non-bio uncle we have around, my brother, inshallah my dad for a while. However, there are whole universes of things that I simply don't have as cultural capital, because I didn't learn how to be a proper man in contemporary American culture. In fact, my child may not have access to them at all: none of the men mentioned above perform any sort of standard masculinity: gay, sensitive, artistic, mentally ill, not raised in the US, multiple of the above, etc. I don't want my kid to learn about domination and silence about emotions and agression.

But I want hir* to know what a carburator is. To be able to understand a baseball game. To have the general knowledge that is, in our culture, assigned to men. I've wanted to be butch--I've tried--but then I start knitting, or letting my hair get long which it always is and always has been, or trying on heels, or screaming about mice, or baking, and it all falls apart in a big mess of femme disaster. I can't teach my children the things proper men know, because I get a D in proper masculinity. A D+, tops, and that's just because I like sci-fi. And sports cars. Even though I can't drive.

There's another level that comes to me as I watch sports and think of my child. I don't know how to teach my kid about being a physical being. About running, jumping, climbing trees, as Eddie Izzard says. My reasons for this are not strictly about my poor marks in masculinity. I was a sickly kid. I mean, it started with the premature birth and the borderline-cerebral palsy and the year of intense occupational therapy and then the asthma and then that benign tumor that at fifteen became a cancerous one and then the three years of surgery and crutches and wheelchairs, and somewhere in all of that I skipped enough gym class to be lost at anything resembling physical activity. My surgeons said they wanted me to be able to run for the bus. I can, but three flights of stairs from subway to ground level leaves me a little breathless, and I fail at any task involving getting two parts of my body to act in contradictory fashions. I can't teach my kid to throw a ball. To run. If ze gets hir athletic skills from Kate's side of the family, ze'll be built for motion, and that is nothing I can ever give hir.

I watched the ballgame off and on, between work and non-work. I know the rules of basketball. I can watch a muted football game in a crowded bar and know when to heckle. Baseball is idiotic anyway. My child will learn how to throw a ball from someone else, will maybe learn how to kick hir way across a field like an uncle she never met, will have a running-jumping-climbing-trees childhood, will hopefully at twenty-seven be able to sit in a bar and perform enough masculinity for hir purposes. It's all I've got to give.