Battle of the Sexes

To my knowledge, no one has told my little Andrew the "typical" gender roles of men and women. He doesn't know that women fill the teaching profession or that men seem to be the only garbage men. He has no reason to think that I am better than Chris or vice-versa simply based on me being a girl and daddy being a boy. He just knows that when he scrapes his knee, he prefers mommy. When he needs to know the "right" way to stand to be the batter, he trusts daddy.

Sadly, he seems to have made another correlation between the genders... although, I honestly don't know how. It all centers around bedtime. When Daddy's away in the evenings for business, school, or sport, Andrew has had a hard time going to sleep. We've been working on this issue for several weeks and have made a great deal of progress. I'm very thankful for that.

However, after three attempts at bedtime (going on an hour and a half tonight), I am saddened for my sweet boy. As I calmed him, I told him that I was very blessed that God gave him to me, and I thank Him nightly for Andrew.

Here's the conversation that followed:
Andrew: Is God in your room at night?
Me: Yes, baby. God is with us always. He's here to give us his love.
Andrew: Are there bad guys in your room?
Me: Nope.
Andrew: Oh. When Daddy's home, he has strong powers to keep the bad guys away. I wish Daddy was here now, so we could have his powers.

At the ripe old age of 3 and a half, he somehow knows that I am not physically strong enough to protect him. My heart breaks... for him to know this already and for me to be reminded of this. I guess it took him verbalizing it to remind me that I can't protect him from everything.

My prayer is that God covers Andrew in peace, so he can rest each night knowing that he is loved and cared for.

My precious, too smart, little boy.

Anne