I wasn't raised by any avowed feminists. I simply had buzzing around me several spirited, wonderful women, an assortment of aunts and a grandmother. The latter, like many of her vintage, quizzed me about the kind of husband I wanted to marry. "Suppose you fall in love with two nice boys?" was her test question. Before giving me a moment to think about what constituted "nice", she put out pondering — "Choose the one with a sister." Then my amused brother would butt in, teasing, "And if both boys have sisters or neither has one?" He was silenced by her ready reply: "Go with the kinder man. Kindness outlasts everything else."

Years later, my son has a sister to understand and a father worth emulating. Yet, it's been a challenge to keep kids in feminist form amid a culture that indulgently believes boys will be boys.