Boy talk

My father likes to tell the story of how he snapped a kitchen knife in two, buttering toast as he waited for me to come into the world. This was in the days when men stayed at home reading Tractor News Weekly while their wives laboured alone in hospital wards minus the aid of hot packs and epidurals and soothing dolphin CDs.

My father snapped a knife when he guessed he had just taken delivery of his third daughter in succession and was doomed forever to an all-female household. Unless you count Morgan the dog.

Dad weathered the Barbie Dolls, the boyfriends, the bathroom eternally occupied while we were taking long hot showers. I remember my parents once hosting a grand dinner party at home. During the meal ‘Sir Geoffrey’ returned from the bathroom with my bra hooked onto his little finger. He'd found it lying on the toilet seat.

As my stepson would say, the situation was ‘dodgy’.

Living in a household where you are the only member of the opposite sex takes courage and stamina. I can sympathise with my father only now that the situation is reversed and I find myself suddenly and surprisingly the only female in a house full of males.

In just over a year I gained a partner, two stepsons, a baby boy and a toilet seat forever more in the vertical position.

Some say that living with boys is easier than living with girls (though I would argue the case when it comes to toddlers. Why does my friend's little girl sit and not run, kiss and not bite, cuddle and not pinch?) Boys can be bold, inventive, not devious, forthright and fun.

You just have to crack the code to understand them.

There is a great line in Bryce Courtney's April Fool's Day where he talks about his three sons going upstairs one night as sunny schoolboys and coming down the next day as grunting teenage neanderthals. I reckon the stone-age phase has hit already in our household. I'm talking about our ten-year-old:

Me:  Hi mate.
Andrew: Yep.
Me:  How was swimming?
Andrew: Mmm.
Me:  What would you like to drink. Cordial or soda?
Andrew: Yuk.
Me:  What's your opinion on the pollination mechanism of Grevillea robusta?
Andrew: Yep.

When it comes to relating in detail the intricate plot of a film, or the shenanigans of Dr Death-the Mutilator on the computer, the boys have no trouble expressing themselves: ‘Mando cut a weave and pulled the anchor on Frekko, he went SBOOF and crashed into the hydrobounder, smashed the link well and BOOM onto the diver axle, SGORG against the radium transmitter and SBURF Wanko pulled a turf from the zero cutter...’

Even the toddler - who is into blokey things like hammers and power drills - has his own language of communication. For the last six month's his favourite word has been ‘mawmawer’. In my zest to claim this as a passionate expression of his love for me I interpreted this as ‘mama’. But mawmawer means lawn mower and he can't stay away from the thing. Mawmawer has evolved over time and now means anything that is wonderful and good and fun. His second favourite word is Dad.

To keep the lines of communication open, I've learnt that it's important to speak the same lingo - even if you have no idea what you're talking about. I try and remember to call my stepsons ‘guys’ now and not ‘boys’, to refer to their dooverlackie as a ‘Nintendo’ and not a ‘Playstation’, to call their whatchamacallit a ‘Gameboy’ not a ‘play boy’. In the case of the toddler I put ‘y’ on the end of every word so he knows I'm talking to him. ‘Joshy, where's your shoey?’ He always corrects me and points down impatiently: ‘Shoe’.

Boys breed boyfriends and a passing parade ambles down the passageway now and then to disappear forever into the bowels of the bedroom. Some of these ‘mates’ have gyroleaped from the stone age and are on the point of becoming slick young executives with two-car households and healthy share portfolios. One is called Paddo.

A few months ago we celebrated my stepson Andrew's tenth birthday at his mother's place. Paddo was invited. Cheered by the adult company, Paddo looked across the table and enquired of the boys' dad: ‘And what do you do Ian?’ When Andrew cut the cake and kissed his mum, Paddo risked spontaneous strangulation:

Paddo:  What about the other one?
Andrew: Huh?
Paddo:   The other mother.
Andrew: (horrified grimace that needs no words).

Boys are not big on displays of affection - unless you count the toddler prising apart your nostrils or his brothers letting you sit in the front seat of the car. As for the ‘love’ word, the closest you'll come to hearing it is probably: ‘I really love it when you buy buttered popcorn’.

But all is not lost. I've learnt now that the most rewarding sound coming from the boys is ‘beep beep click click, DIE!’ when they're playing with their Nintendo. According to my Morse decoder this actually means ‘Life is good. Busy at the moment. Talk to you in five years’.

by Jo-Ann Stubbings

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, May 2001.