Quantcast

Why boys?

Recently a few emails came to us that were not very positive. Some visitors to our blog were offended by our exclusion of girls and our perpetuation of gender roles. Unfortunately those people have misunderstood our intentions, and I am deeply sorry that they felt offended by our blog. I thought it would be a good opportunity to clear the air. They may or may not read this, but at the very least I hope that this post will help people better understand our purpose in the future.

Why boys?

We chose the name Rockin’ Boys Club for pretty obvious reasons. Jill and I both have three boys and no girls. If you include our husbands, that makes four boys in our lives. We created The Rockin’ Boys Club as a website where moms of boys could relate to each other. Because no matter how far away from mainstream gender ideals you may lie, boys and girls are still different. That being said, we are in no way trying to exclude anyone at all from reading our blog and using anything we make available. We are not anti-pink, which should be pretty obvious by some of our style picks, and we are definitely not against girls playing with Legos. (I happen to be one of those girls.)

There are plenty of sites that share ideas for boys, girls, kids, and adults a like. We are not one of those sites. We choose to share about boys because we have boys and we love them. It’s our niche. If we didn’t have a niche we’d be just another mommy blog – but we wanted to stand out just a little bit. We certainly aren’t offended by websites that are dedicated to all the frilly princessy things that a lot of girls love.

I didn’t care for frilly dresses, princesses or even barbies when I was growing up. I passed right by the doll aisle and went for the action figures. I played baseball outside with my cousins and I rarely wore a skirt or a dress. I avoided the color pink at all costs. If anyone knows what it’s like to be outside of the norm, it’s me. As I grew older I began to embrace my girly-ness a little more, but I still hung out with guys, love watching scary movies, listening to punk music and I know more about Marvel comic book characters than my husband ever has. Hardly “ladylike,” but that doesn’t mean I’m not a lady!

“If you have a boy then you’re in the club.” It does sound a bit exclusive, I agree with that. Raising boys is a special thing, and we want those moms to be able to relate to each other, just as moms of girls have their own “clubs” in which to share their experiences. For us, it’s not about being exclusive, it’s about supporting other moms that are going through the same things we are/have.

If you have a little girl who loves Legos, Star Wars, Bugs, Video Games, whatever, we welcome you to our site with open arms. I know we already have plenty of readers who don’t even have boys, but they still love sharing our crafts and ideas with their girls. If you have a boy who likes to play dress up, take care of a doll or gets into your makeup regularly, we welcome you too. (Actually my middle son does all of those things and it is absolutely okay with me.)

In short, we apologize for making any one feel like they are left out. We are just trying to write about what we love – our boys – and what our boys love. If you have girls but they love those things too, then we think that’s awesome and we hope you’ll stick around too.