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.
I was just telling someone the other day what great parents I thought you and Chad are and once again your actions and words have proven me to be right. I wish more parents would take as much interest in what their children are doing at school and in their free time as you and Chad do. I feel lucky to know you both and to know that there are parents such as you and Chad and my 2 sisters who are raising their kids to know who they are and love themselves and to be independent, caring, honorable young adults. I would like to think there are more parents such as yourselves and my sisters who do want their kids to be fantastic people who believe they can achieve whatever they put their minds to then the other parents who believe as long as they feed them and keep a roof over their heads their work is done in this world because if that is not the case this world will have a sad and uncertain future.
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