Columnists
Boys and girls
Ah, it’s springtime and the young-at-heart turn their thoughts to love. Recently, someone posed a question, on social media, asking why we continue to teach our children that showing your love for another person sometimes means abuse. Huh? How can that possibly be right? Well, let me explain.
When I was a kid in grade five, a male classmate constantly found a reason to pull my hair or give me a shove on the playground. He was so intent on making my life a misery, he willingly risked spending his recess standing in the cloakroom by seeking me out on the girls’ side of the play yard. My parents weren’t big on any of their children tattling, but the story came out when I had to explain the scraped knee and torn stockings.
I didn’t hear what I’d heard from the teachers on yard duty. Nope. My parents did not say, “He does that because he likes you.” My parents told me the kid was a bully and they would speak to the principal about it. The principal was an imposing nun by the name of Mother Cecily. After my parents’ discussion with Mother Cecily, the hair-pulling and shoving stopped. However, the boy was, most obviously, so in love with me that the verbal assaults, shouted from the boys’ side of the playground, commenced. Verbal abuse was much more difficult to prove.
So I took matters into my own hands and began to dish it back—because “sticks and stones” and all that jazz. I did get caught, mid-taunt, one day. Apparently, girls were expected not to behave that way. Our classroom teacher, an older gentleman, reminded me that “boys will be boys” and “young ladies shouldn’t behave like hooligans.” My mistake. No one told me hooliganism was just a boy thing. I spent an afternoon’s recess writing lines on the chalkboard.
That was the 1950s. What’s changed since then? Well, you’d think a lot, right? But generally speaking, many of us still think (deep down inside) that “boys will be boys” and “girls shouldn’t behave like hooligans.” We like to believe we just can’t help it. Heck, it’s practically part of our genetic make-up, right?
I’m fairly certain each and every one of us thinks, feels or demonstrates, in some way, that it’s okay for boys to be bullies because they’re just being boys. Some of us are kinda proud of our boys when they’re “being boys.” And if girls are bullies, well don’t we have some choice words for that! But my point isn’t about the boys against the girls. My point is we still haven’t learned that abuse isn’t a sign of love, like or affection. And the abuse can by physical, verbal, emotional or sexual.
We have to get over our deeply embedded notions of acceptable boy behaviour and girl behaviour. It’s time to start talking to the children about bodily safety and not sugarcoat the truth. Children learn as much from what we say to them as they do from what we don’t say to them. We need to start a conversation with our children about respect for the privacy of others.
We must teach respect for the preferences of others, including understanding an individual’s rights. As adults, it is our responsibility to defend and protect our children from those people who just don’t get it. I was fortunate. My parents understood it was their job to teach their children. Their lessons were the same for the boys as they were for the girls.
Comments (0)