Does Waldorf meet the needs of boys? My boys?

I was drawn to the Waldorf philosophy at a very early age. My little sister went to a Waldorf school for what was to be her kindergarten year, and I was with my mom when we picked her up and dropped her off. I was absolutely fascinated by the wooden toys, the silk scarves draped in front of the windows, the soft-spoken teacher who seemed more like a beloved grandmother out of a fairy tale than anyone on salary...

They did really different things than cut out little turkeys out of construction paper. They played alot of olden time circle games and seemed to spend a good deal of time out of doors. There were children of many different cultures in attendance, too, which was sort of rare in 1985 in our area, sadly. I loved that my baby sister was spinning wool and playing with dried beans, and it really sparked the embers of my burgeoning interest in alternatives in education. I was fascinated by different types of schooling, testing and procedures from an early age, for sure. In fact, after I got my Bachelor's degree in psychology, I had planned on getting a master's in school psychology. Looks like I am doing work-study instead, huh? :)

Fast forward a few years to my early days with my new baby girl. I wanted the gentlest purest things in her life, as all parent are apt to do. Natural foods, natural fibers, organic everything, nature and flowers and historically significant music would be the only thing to tickle her ears. Everything that was plastic or character-emblazoned that was somehow pouring into our home was NOT of our doing. I didn't like the fact that being "poor" made us more vulnerable to accepting toys and clothes and influences that we did not want in our lives, but before we knew it, our little Greta was covered in Elmo clothes and drowning in a bedroom full of plastic toys, lots of them that "talked"--ewww.

When we moved away from our first house, we took more of an active stance in what we had in our little girl's life. We got rid of a lot of crap. We were feeling stronger and more confident as parents, and we began to feel ok saying no to talking toys and crappy Disney stuff, and as she grew, we began to discuss education. We looked into the 2 Waldorf schools in our area but they were $8000 a year for PRESCHOOL! So that was immediately out of the question.

Why Waldorf? I thought the whole thing seemed to care so much for the spirit of the child, for nature, for goodness and purity and the catalogs that would come to the house with all the natural toys and goodies warmed my heart. I wanted this for my child, and, through the casual placement of both boys and girls in the catalogs, one thing never, ever occured to me, and that was the possibility that Waldorf might be much, much more suited for girls.

I knew it all --harhar--when I was the mother of one little girl, and one of the things that I "knew" was that all the boys who were wild and boisterous and making little weapons out of every twig and berry were surely the unfortunate victims of a terrible violent society, hell-bent on making all male infants into little football players and little marines, and that all those parents were horrible and they were ruining a whole generation of young boys for my daughter.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Even in the womb, Mickey was different than Greta, and no, I didn't know the gender of any of my babies until they were born. Greta rolled and swished in my belly. Mickey did jumping jacks. Ask Steve-- I occasionally CRIED, he would buck so hard in there, I was afraid he would break my ribs.

As a newborn he and his sister were vaguely similar--he was much more fussy and loud, but I don't know how much of that had to do with his birth, etc... but pretty early on he was different from Greta. The way he played with the exact same toys she had was different. He threw things across the room at 4 months old that caused me to think really cheesy thoughts like "He's got an arm on him!" At 6 months old, he could kick little toys across the whole front of the house from his doorway jumper, and really did prefer rock n roll to any of the toddler tunes that Greta still loved. If I gave him a soft blankie, he would rip it off his head, cackling with brillaint laughter, where she would be likely to leave it on her head, maybe holding it undr her chin like a little bonnet. Greta also CUDDLED, HUNG OUT WITH YOU, STAYED PUT in general! I didnt know anything about little tots running AWAY at 100 miles per hour until I had been a mother for 4 years and my son was mobile. Goodness! Why wont he HANG OUT like Greta did? I look at the videotapes of her walking calmly down the street for her 2 year old Halloween and I am stunned. I would NEVER have Mickey, Casey, or Charlie anywhere near the street if they weren't in a stroller, with shoulderstraps, thanks you very much! Are you kidding me?

Another thing Greta did was that she would cradle and caress any and everything, even cans in the grocery cart. Mickey would throw them. She loved stuffed animals and coloring--he HATED stuffed animals and ate the crayons like a stack of fresh pretzels.

Don't even get me started on baby Casey...he made Mickey look positively tame! He climbed the actual TV/entertainment center at FIVE MONTHS OLD, forcing us to make dozens of emergency trips to buy all sorts of "babyproofing" products that we never in our wildest dreams imagined that any good family should ever need.

Was it ok for me to now proclaim it a boy-girl thing?

What about when our third boy in five years came along? Did that qualify me yet?

Look, I know most of you know this, but I had big dreams of gender neutrality. Big ones. I dressed my little girl in jean overalls at birthday parties, for pete's sake. We eschewed ALL Barbie, Bratz, and lil' slut clothes. We nurtured and loved our children outside of the realm of media as much as humanly possible. We never told our daughter to be meek and pleasant and we never told our sons don't cry/toughen up/be a man. Ever. We model a balanced marriage for them, and we really, really try.

BUT

Some things are just not up our kids' alleys. and those kids happen to be boys. And now I get to my point, sort of.

I do not know if Waldorf really meets the needs of most boys.

I find an EXTRAORDINARILY unbalanced ratio of women with only daughters being drawn to this philosophy. Such an unbalanced ratio that I even have wondered if there is something in the very ethereal woman that prevents her from bearing a son. I swear. Its food for thought at least.

Anyhow.
Maybe I am completely insane. Maybe I need a babysitter for maybe just Mickey to give this co-op thing a chance. I do not know if I can go tomorrow, and I really want to. Maybe I am making this huge gender thing out of nothing. But I doubt it.

It seems very lovely, for a certain type of kid. a type of kid that I do not honestly know if you can "create" just by providing a certain kind of upbringing. Maybe you can. I did not and now that I see my kids' personalities, I think for certain this this is not Mickey's cup of tea.

Doesn't mean he can't be gentle and insightful or artistic or love feathers and flowers as much as the next guy. But when he shines is when he is around numbers and action, building and planning, mazes and maps and rules and puzzles and sports and maths, big messes and big laughter and plenty of burp and fart jokes and that is TOTALLY TOTALLY O-KAY.

So,
given the physical restraints and stresses of me going to this thing with the baby and Casey and Greta and given that I have concluded that Mickey only liked playing in the tiny house but could do without the rest of Waldorf Co-Op (I think...)

I don't know if we are going back tomorrow. I don't even have any money for whole foods luncheon and would have to write a check to Kroger that wasn't really "good" until Friday in hopes it took its time to "go through", if you catch my drift...

But I do want to talk to the Wiccan mama and I do want to go back. I think Casey would be so happy to play in the little house and Greta might be more apt to settle in to the "classes" without Mickey there and her perceived duty to keep him from saying bad things...whatever it was that he said.
I just don't know.