your thoughts on Little Women

To my own mind a tomboy is a girl who loves to play chase, work on the farm in dungarees and do a lot of the things other little boys and girls do.  Rather than just doing girly things as a youngster, a tomboy would like to run and jump and be like one of the boys…..  I always loved tea parties, but also loved roughhousing and working on the farm with other boys and girls.  I played chase and hide and seek, and we played cowboys etc – it never made me discontented with being a girl – I never wanted to be a boy.  I played soccer on a girls and then a womans team, I ran for our county in the 800 metres and in cross country – and I was also a member of a needlework guild, and ballroom dancing classes.  I think I had a very well rounded upbringing.  I still love working outside, still love needlework, love tea parties, love classical music and I still love soccer – though I can only watch now.  Just acting like a boy now and then I don’t think means you are not content with being a girl.  I remember that the boys used to come and have tea with us as well – it made for a wonderful time.  On Saturday nights, we always put on a play for our parents at the farm, boys and girls together – for me it was a childhood I cherish and will always remember – I like wearing pants, because I work a lot outside in the yard, and I am more comfortable that way – I don’t think for one second it makes me less of a woman and I still love to walz and do the quickstep.  Linda

I think it’s important to remember that while God gave us the roles in life that we have, He also gave us unique personalities and some of those are for a reason.  I was a “tomboy” as a child.  I ran, biked, played, climbed trees, hated dresses, was smart, even (when I was young) at math, loved to write, and even at times struggled with feelings of being discontented–but mostly when I would hear that those things were “bad.”  I just could never have been a dressed-in-pink organdy, tea-party, scream-at-bugs kind of girl.  I think it would have done violence to my spirit to try to MAKE me like that.  It was when I felt unaccepted for who I was that I thought at times that boys had it pretty good.  I was at times the despair of my mother. 

But do you know what?  I turned out to be a Christian wife and mother–of BOYS.  🙂  As I grew older, I both began to understand what was really required of me as a woman, and finally to long for motherhood.  I still don’t wear pink organdy or have tea parties, but it sure is handy that I like snakes, can climb trees, and can fix bikes.  🙂  And try as I might, I really don’t see anything in the Bible requiring me to be a “girly-girl”–true femininity is very different, I think, from girly-girliness.  God had a plan for me, right down to the personality traits He gave me.  To be frank, I don’t think the Proverbs 31 woman is a girly-girl.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she could fix the ancient Palestinian version of bikes, actually.  🙂

Now, about Jo, and Caddie Woodlawn, and many other characters from children’s literature–these girls were at times my best friends.  Really.  They were my proof that although I was different, I wasn’t a freak.  AND, most importantly, they both actually charted a path to womanhood that had a tremendous influence on me.  Jo struggled some as a child–but look at the woman she became!  How could anyone think Mother Bhaer was not a fantastic Christian woman?  Perhaps a reading of the “rest of the story” on top of just Little Women would be pertinent–but Jo became a wonderful woman.  And Caddie–did no one else but me catch the fantastic growth she showed through both Caddie Woodlawn AND Magical Melons?  She finally began to understand some of the “differences” and yet some of the responsibilities she would have as a woman–and she began to embrace them!  If anything, I think stories like these would STRENGTHEN a young tomboy towards her Godly calling as a woman and a mother–showing a path for those of us who have been given different personality traits than the frilly sort of girl.  A path that still ends in us becoming who God wants us to be.

In short, I really don’t think it’s a “weakness” or a sin not to be a little different from the run-of-the-mill girl.  God had a plan for the traits He gave me.  I was also helped very much by the great female characters I read along the way–women like Jo, and Caddie, and Laura Ingalls–who helped me find my own way, my own path to womanhood.

Hear hear Bookworm – beautifully put.  I have not read Caddie Woodlawn, but thanks for reminding me of Laura Ingalls – loved those books and I agree and those kinds of books were friends to me as well.  Linda