A XY in a XX body - (Angela's Gender Swap Challenge)

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

The Elementary/Middle School Years:

According to my father it's never too early to learn that a real man: holds a spatula with as much skill as a rifle - learning to cook fine cuisine with all the nutrition necessary for a healthy family, has a starched collar as well as a crease in your blue jeans, and keeps a home so tidy you can eat off any surface whether the floor or whatever you threw against the wall (not that a real man ever would).

Since I'm a boy I whine and complain because I can survive on peanut butter and jelly, play football - not that pansy powder puff stuff like the girls do, jump the highest ramps with my dirt bike - not peddle a weak little ten speed up and down the court, and climb trees or jump ditches or have mud fights getting good and dirty - who cares if my clothes get messed up.

The High School/College Years:

According to my father it's time to buckle down and prepare for the outside world because, as a black man, I'm already labeled by all the racial prejudices in American society: a drunk, a drug dealer, a rapist of innocent white girls/women, a baby daddy - with five different women at least, ex-con, welfare recipient draining the economy, lazy slacker who can't amount to anything more than washing car windows or begging for money on the street.

Because I'm a young man I completed the honors program at my high school and while I didn't make it Ivy League I made it into a good college, studying a double major - History/Psychology - with a Creative Writing minor on the side, because I'm going to do something with my life and take care of my father when he's ready to retire.

Currently:

While I'm a man I've got no woman waiting at home, no kids somewhere I never see, just me and my chocolate lab typing a 6S to share with friends I'll probably never meet in person.

In A Possible Future:

Maybe one day I'll get married and we'll have a child who, regardless of sex, will learn all the things my father taught me only I won't ram the lessons down his throat instead letting him learn things in his own time, muddy shoes and all.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

s'ok.  If it hadn't been for Angela I never would have had the idea.

[Annabelle Baptista]

Sorry Deborah, you're definitely a name I'll be looking for ;)

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

@ Joey ~ I might just do that. Thanks for all your encouragement. BTW I shared your version with several female coworkers and they laughed, applauded and wanted to read on.

@ Annabelle ~ I wrote it not Angela, it was just her challenge. Thanks for your support.

[Annabelle Baptista]

Yeah, Angela you made it to the other side,in both tales of your story,  as a man, it can be difficult and as a minority it can get crazy. I know too, as a black woman, but I'm sure anyone with imagination can also relate.

[Joey Delgado]

This is a beautiful, powerful piece, that not only fits the challenge, but also is a nice tribute to your father, who it seems is your masculine ideal. Well, for the most part. The part about the college years is so extremely profound, it feels like it deserves it's own six.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

Thank you. Most of it is my life just switched for the male aspect: my dad does all the things in sentence one and expected me to learn them too. I did everything in sentence 2 behind his back - would have been nice if I didn't have to. My dad told me when I was young that the most feared person is 'an educated black woman' so I focused in school because I grew up knowing the stigma of black men because I had to learn black history beyond Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver like Rosewood and other incidents not mentioned in the few textbook paragraphs dealing about slavery, segregation, Civil Rights, mixed marriages, etc.

[Angela]

I like the way you took us through the stages of your life as a man.  You made a strong, positive, important statement.