Over the weekend I saw the movie “He is Not that into You”. It was a cute movie that for some reason has me pondering a few things. The first one being, the saying that sometime in our life as a girl we have been told when a boy is mean to us, “He is doing that because he likes you”!
That is not true and is such a ridiculous thing to say, isn’t it? I have vivid memories back to Kindergarten of a boy in my neighborhood he would ride his bike by my house while I was outside, he would sing or taunt “Kindergarten baby” (he was in the 1st grade). Then when I was in junior high that same boy would approach me daily or very close to daily, and tell me I was ugly. Guess what I was told, “Oh, he just likes you!”
Each time this boy would come to me and tell me I was ugly, I would hear those words echo, “he just likes you” then some better reasoning came to me and I would think to myself “No, I am pretty sure this guy has not one inkling of like for me”, and in all honestly, I did not like him either! Furthermore, if he did like me – what a way to show it, right? Why would I want to spend time with some Yahoo that was a jerk to me?
What does that teach us as women? It is okay for a man to treat you horribly, that is his way of showing you he likes you? I say figure out another way pal! What does that teach our boys? It is okay to treat a girl badly; she will think you like her.
Today I make two promises for you to witness and hold me accountable, I will never say to my daughter, when a boy is being mean to her that he is doing it because he likes her. If a boy likes my little girl, he had better treat her with respect and do nice things for her or else take a hike! The second promise is to teach my little boy, to treat girls with respect! No pony tail pulling, no mean words, if you like them show them you like them by doing nice things, respecting them, and being honest, if you do not like them treat them with respect, and let them be themselves.
The challenge we all have, is to teach our girls to be strong, stand up for themselves, and demand the respect they deserve and teach our boys to be respectful, and show their feelings good or bad correctly? As I write this, it brings up an entirely new question; shouldn’t both boys and girls demand the respect they deserve in a positive way?
Before having kids, I vowed I would never say "because I said so" and I admit, I have broken that vow. However, now that I am actually a parent, I believe that one might actually apply sometimes but I feel telling my daughter a boy is mean to her because he likes her is more damaging.
Something to ponder. . . . Who is with me?
This blog has become quite lengthy, and I only covered the one topic on my mind. I will save my next pondering for a follow up blog!
Later
