Moodle

Oh boy - it just keeps getting worse!

My son and his friend went roller skating Friday night, and came home joking about how many girls phone numbers they each got. I just about died, until they confessed they were just kidding - in part. It turns out my sons friend started “going out” with a girl he’s “been on and off again” with since last year. (yes, that was only 4th grade - gosh they start young!) Apparently he gave her his phone number to call him, but didn’t have time to get hers.

The next morning my friend called and I jokingly said “oh, did Meghan call?” and she gasped. “How did you know?!” I told her I was joking, but that is just what had happened. She didn’t know yet that her son was going back out with Meghan, and so when she got the call she was in shock. I put her on the phone with her son, who confessed, and she reminded him about the talk they’d had about girls getting in the way of school. He promised he wouldn’t let it, and she told him they’d talk about it later - then stating “And I don’t want girls calling here all of the time!”.

I guess she called again, because this morning my friend told me she had her son return the call, ask what she wanted, and then got off of the phone with her. Both my friend and I do NOT want our boys chatting on the phone with girls at this age! It’s one thing if they “like” each other and say they are “going out”, it’s another when they are chatting on the phone and setting up meeting at the skating rink and stuff. They have their whole lives to date - I just don’t think we need to start it now.

I do wonder what’s going on at these girls homes. Do their parents know they are calling the boys like this? Do they care? Would they be mortified if they knew how their girls behave, or do they think it’s cute? I just don’t know, and all of my friends with kids this age have sons. But it really makes me wonder…

I know kids have to grow-up. I know my son is growing up, he’s a tween. But I don’t think we should have to rush into everything, I want him to enjoy being a kid as long as he can, and I certainly don’t want him feeling like he has to have a girlfriend to feel “popular” or that if he has one that he has to talk on the phone and meet her places. Believe it or not, it’s the girls who are the ones pushing all of this, although I know in a couple of years it will be the other way around. In the meantime, it’s hard to teach the boys that just because the girls want to do it doesn’t make it ok or something I want them doing.

I know there are many of you reading this and thinking “you have no idea, this is nothing”. I know you’re right. And that’s what scares me!