So, You Want to Date My Daughter?

Yesterday, my twelve year-old daughter, Ashley, changed out of her cow-print footie pajamas into her school clothes, double-knotted the laces of her multi-colored Converse, packed her penguin lunch box, and went to school—where a boy asked her to “go out” with him because he thought she was cute. By “asked her,” I mean he made his friends do it for him because he is, after all, eleven.

I was completely shocked. Not because a boy asked Ashley to be his girlfriend, because she’s adorable and he clearly has good taste. I wasn’t even shocked that Ashley was teased about her answer, which was “No.” Her actual words to the kid’s messengers were, “I’m not allowed to date and I have no interest in it.” They all made fun of her, which is what kids sometimes do—they make fun of things they don’t understand. They couldn’t believe Ashley’s parents wouldn’t let her date and they told her it was “so weird.” That’s the part that shocked me.

It’s considered “weird” if parents don’t let their pre-teen children “date.” I’m sorry, my pre-teen has only been out of diapers for nine years. She needs reminders to brush her teeth every day, and she still believes in Santa. Can you give her a minute to just be a kid? What have we taught our eleven and twelve year-old children about dating if they think it’s abnormal to not be allowed to?

Not all parents agree with me (surprise, surprise). Many parents think pre-teen dating is cute and innocent. “At this age, all dating means is that they sit together at lunch or on the bus,” is the justification I hear many parents make when they let their young kids date. I’d like to suggest another name for that form of dating: friendship. Admittedly, dating probably does mean that to some kids. But it doesn’t to most of them. And I think you know that.

I’m more interested in training my twelve year-old daughter how to be a good friend to others than I am in training her how to have a successful romance before she even gets her first period. I’m more interested in teaching her how to deal with her own changing hormones than I am in teaching her how to deal with a pre-pubescent boy’s. That will all happen soon enough, and until she’s ready for it, I choose to make my daughter wait.

Ashley’s daddy and I encourage her to have lots of friends—girls and boys. We also encourage her to pick up her crayons and craft supplies from every surface in the house; we sew up Waddle—the stuffed penguin she’s slept with every night for ten years—when he starts to fall apart; and we help her deal with the challenging and already difficult process of becoming a teenage girl. The last thing we want to introduce to Ashley is how to deal with romantic feelings when she is still trying to grasp how to divide fractions.

As parents, we’re busy though, right? We have a lot to do. Work is hard enough and then we have to come home and raise kids, worry about finances, and stress about all the things that don’t even come close to mattering as much as our children do. If we invested as much time in keeping our fingers on the pulse of our kids’ social lives as we do on the other things we try to juggle, maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to let our children date.

I read an article on pre-teen dating and learned that not a lot of research has been done on it because—guess what—“dating” doesn’t mean the same thing for pre-teens that it used to. The article lists some of the negative effects of teenage dating and claims that pre-teens can expect to experience similar results, which include: 

• Mood swings and symptoms of depression
• Increased conflict in relationships with family and friends
• Increased likelihood of sexual encounters (If this is news to you, then you, my friend, are a fool.)

Years ago, I drove my kids to their elementary school, and at the bottom of the hill, just off school property, I saw a fifth-grade girl making out with an adult man (at least he appeared to be an adult). They were really going at it. I went straight into the school office and told the secretary that there was a pervert making out with a child down the hill.

“We know about that relationship. It’s okay; he’s not eighteen and her mom approves,” she said.

I explained to her that there was no way in hell that what I just saw was okay, and we need to call the police on the pervert, and give me the mom’s phone number while we’re at it because she’s an idiot.

“Well, they aren’t on school property. And mom approves, so it’s okay,” the secretary replied, acting like I was an over-zealous hall monitor trying to bust someone for running in the halls. I just shook my head in disbelief and walked out of the office.

That little fifth-grade girl was pregnant with that nearly-grown-man’s baby. During recesses, she showed off her sonogram pictures to her friends while the rest of the kids played tag, and four square, and traded Pokémon cards. Many of them thought it was cool that she was pregnant.

But I’m the weirdo for not allowing my daughter to date. Ashley faces the gossip and teasing like a champ. She doesn’t care what those kids think about her and you want to know why? Because, while so many other kids are obsessed with relationships that will end in three days, and checking the box “yes” or “no” (I’m sure there is now a pre-teen dating app for that old-school method), Ashley is learning how to be a strong, independent little girl. She’s learning how to survive the cruelty of middle school and she’s learning how to love her friends and herself before she ever starts loving a boy. 

Besides, we all know boys have Cooties.

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Fraser-Thill, Rebecca. “The Problems Associated with Tween Dating.” About Parenting. n.p. n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2015.

How to Play the Guitar Like Me

            

(This is my step-by-step process for playing the guitar. Feel free to tailor it however you'd like, there is no one way to play, as long as your music speaks to you. As Longfellow said, "Music is the universal language of mankind." And as I say, "Yep.")

Nineteen years ago, a boy taught me how to play certain parts of certain songs and I have never forgotten how. Well, I’ve never forgotten how to play certain parts of certain parts of certain songs. So I’ll explain that.

The guitar I play is a classical guitar, which means it has nylon strings (acoustics have steel strings) and it has a wider neck than an acoustic guitar. The sound is much more mellow and “folksy.” I didn't know this at the time, instead, I liked the color of the wood. I recommend choosing your instrument based solely on appearance. I bought the guitar at a pawn shop on my eighteenth birthday. I also bought a pair of Doc Marten’s from Joon’s head shop in Lakewood. It was a good birthday.

First, I take the guitar out of the attic and blow off the dust. I have an allergy attack and go upstairs to find tissues. I notice my linen closet is in complete disarray so I rearrange and organize a bit. I go back to my guitar. I unzip the case and remove the guitar. The initial strum of the strings tells me the guitar needs tuning. I call my husband, Chad, who tunes it for me. I’m not sure how this is done. I think magic is involved. And turning the pegs on the neck just so. But mostly magic.

Once the guitar is tuned (I know it’s tuned because Chad tells me it is) I situate the guitar in my lap, holding the neck in my left hand with the strings facing away from me. This part is important to remember for the novice. I wrote a poem to help you remember:

Guitar strings away

Easy to play.

(After a while, this part will become second nature, be patient with yourself.) I spend the next three minutes trying to recall finger placement for the intro to Metallica’s “One.” This is where those around me hear a lot of:

“No wait…. Okay... listen now—no—wait. Okay, watch. How come this isn’t working?”

Finally, I realize that my fingers are on the wrong part of the fingerboard, which means I’m playing the wrong notes. I can’t tell you what the notes are called, only that they’re the wrong ones.

Eventually, my fingers find the right strings. This is usually an accident. By this time, everyone has left the room. I begin to play the song. I can’t use a pick because it messes me up, but I’m pretty sure the song would sound better with a pick. Also, it might sound better on an electric guitar, but I don't have one of those.  I begin to play the notes and at this point, I once again say:

“Wait, No... Okay… No. Wait... I hate this stupid guitar.”

I pick—with my fingers, not an actual pick, because those are hard—my way through the first eight or nine seconds of the song. Because that’s all I know. I call my family to come back in the room. They seem to not hear me. I yell louder. I get up and take the guitar into the other room where they are squeezed together behind the curtains, standing as still as statues. This tells me they are waiting for me to perform and don’t want to be a distraction while I play. I perform for them.

It takes a few minutes of fumbling, but I finally play my piece. They slowly step out from behind the curtain. My kids’ faces bear the expression of someone who just watched a natural childbirth for the first time. As I begin to ask what their reaction means, I’m interrupted by Chad, who puts his arm around me and says, “Rachie, how do you do that?” I offer to teach him but he quickly excuses himself to answer the front door. Which is weird, because I didn’t hear a knock.

That is how I play a guitar. There are multiple techniques and methods by which you too can learn to play, and I hope you find one you love. Remember, it took me nineteen years to get where I am.