A few weeks ago, Number 3 came home from school and told me that a couple of girls in one of his classes sprayed him with a bunch of perfume and he was SO ANNOYED.
And my first question was,
“Did you do something to encourage that?”
And he looked right at me and said,
MOM, WHAT THE FLIP?
It took me about five seconds to realize what I had done.
I apologized.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him.
“Mom, I literally did nothing,” he said.
That didn’t really matter, though.
I mean, unless he was assaulting them and they were trying to fend him off with Love’s Baby Soft, they were out of line.
“You know,” I said to him, after taking a few moments to think about it, “if you had done that to them, you could have gotten into pretty big trouble.”
These days it doesn’t take much.
And I spend way more time than I should worrying about him saying one little thing that someone doesn’t like and having his future being permanently affected by it.
“I KNOW, MOM,” he said.
“What did the teacher say?” I asked.
“She said nothing because the girls never get in trouble for anything,” he said.
I don’t know if the second half of that statement is true or not.
What I do know is that I automatically assumed he was in the wrong and must have done something to encourage the perfume bath he got.
And that can’t feel very good for him.
What I also know is that we are so quick to want to protect our daughters from boys and from being taken advantage of and from entering into abusive relationships and what we often don’t read about is the opposite side of this coin.
Here is what I know.
Girls in the 8th/9th/10th grade age range can be really aggressive.
REALLY AGGRESSIVE.
I don’t know if protect is the best word to use.
I don’t want to necessarily protect my kids at this age. I mean, sure, yes, I want to keep my kids safe. And if someone were to fuck with them, the psycopath in me would come out.
But at this age they need to be able to think for themselves and protect themselves.
So developing an awareness and educating my kids is probably a more accurate way to put things.
We spend so much time worrying about our daughters and doing what we can to make sure they don’t allow people to disprespect them, but I’m not so sure we do the same thing for our sons.
I spend a lot of time talking to my boys about being gentlemen and about treating women with respect, but in all honesty, I don’t really do the same thing with my girls.
I talk to Number 4 who is 13 years old now about not allowing boys to pressure her and trying to prepare her for certain situations that may arise, but I haven’t done the same with Number 3.
And he has already experienced more than one instance where girls have been very forward.
He needs the same conversations as his sister.
Because it definitely goes both ways.
Boys can seriously cross the line.
But so can girls.
And I think maybe sometimes we forget that. We forget that boys need our guidance to navigate this stuff just as badly as girls do.
At least I know that I forget this.
But now that I’ve had this little wake up call, I can do better for all my kids.
I have found adolescent girls can be far more aggressive than the boys. This behaviour can have devastating consequences on young boys
Great observation. I had similar conversation with my granddaughter. She was lamenting the fact that boys tease girls and claim they are better than girls.
I asked her, “Do you want to do what boys do?” The answer was no.
I asked, “Do you think boys want to do what girls do?”
“No”
“So, could it be that what you really want is to be respected for what we each bring to the table?”
Could it be we all just need to respect each other?
Thank you for writing this. I too have asked my 10 year old son if he was the instigator in situations he has come to me with. More often than not, he claims the girls go after the boys and become very physical. My son is strong and could easily defend from these ‘attacks,’ but he was taught from a young age to use his words and to keep his hands to himself, especially when it’s a girl. However, words don’t necessarily work on the playground in elementary school and when he has approached an adult on the playground they don’t take him seriously, thinking a boy should be able to handle whatever a girl dishes out. It’s a double standard…one that both parents and educators should look at.
In middle school my son was assaulted multiple times by a girl once she drew blood and all of these were completely unprovoked attacks. I went to the administration and they said ‘they would speak to her’ but nothing was done. My son later in middle school defended himself against a boy who sucker punched him and he was suspended for the rest of the school year for fighting. Complete double standards and unfortunately the girls know this and take advantage. And I have both sons and a daughter and we teach respect for everyone.