Embodying Gender Throughout my Lifespan

I was fortunate growing up to live close to my cousins house and being able to see them and grow up with them throughout my child. There was a total of five boys between the two families. It was my older brother and I and then my three cousins that were boys as well. I was the youngest of the five by about three years. They have a sister that is my age but I always found myself wanting to hang with the boys whether they liked it our not. An example of a time I remember specifically was when we were all at our grandparents house one Sunday. My three cousins and brother decided they were all going to go outside and play tackle football in the yard. My grandma didn't want me to play with them because she thought I would get hurt being tackled by my older cousins. My other option was to draw with chalk on the driveway with my female cousin that is my age. I saw that option to be more feminine at the time and decided to play football. We would always come into the house all sweaty, bruised up and dirty. I never second guessed it because at the time it was what the norm was, every time boys would play outside, it usually ended with them being this way. My grandma was right, it did hurt a lot being tackled but I feel like it trained my body and myself to be more immune to pain easily. Being around them taught me to become mentally and physically tougher and my athleticism showed during the games. This helped me throughout my sports career as i got older because when games became more physical, I felt like I had an advantage at the time because of who I grew up with. My body was used to getting nudged a little while dribbling up the court or boxing out an opponent.


Another example of why I was put in the sports path I am currently in here at St. Ambrose, is because my grandpa and grandma on my dads side of the family had such a huge influence in my sport career. My grandpa was the one who taught me the game of basketball and my grandma who also played basketball growing up came to almost every practice to watch. What I think had a big influence of what sports I played was that my grandparents had four boys of their own. They were usually only involved in male dominant sports at the time. They never really got a taste of the female sports so they just stuck with what they knew and were most familiar with.