On different levels of respect, fake love, fake hate, and more.
My 13 year old son often tries to start “deep” discussions in order to get out of doing the dishes or going to bed, so when I asked him to do the dishes and he said “I wanted to talk to you about something.” I didn’t necessarily expect to have one of our most awesome discussions ever.
It started out with him telling me that he noticed that many of the kids in his junior high have started hanging out in “different” kinds of groups. Which was his way of telling me that they’ve started having groups of pairs instead of mostly “guy groups” and “girl groups.” So I asked him, “What have you noticed about these different groups?”
“I’ve noticed that the boys at school that are not respectful to girls are mostly the ones that have girlfriends.”
I was thinking “Oh Crap!” and mentally scrambling for how to deal with the 13-year-old version of “Women only like jerks!” To buy me time, I asked him what he thought respect was. His answer blew me away.
“Respect is following a not-talked-about group of agreements. But that’s not all. It also means not holding someone back and not being passive-aggressive.”
I can’t say that I’ve ever heard a better explanation of respect anywhere. By this time I was totally paying attention and asked him to repeat that so I could start taking notes. Then I asked him what he would do or not do if he was being respectful.
“Not touch in any unpolite manner and certainly not being passive aggressive or holding someone back or down or not giving them any choice what to do. Bullying is very disrespectful, you’re trying to put them lower, you don’t actually get higher, you’re still in the same place and they are lower, instead of really talking to people and getting yourself higher.”
So I asked him if it was different how people disrespected a boy from how they disrespected a girl.
“With boys, it’s more physical. With girls, they more treat them like innocent breakable glass, like they can’t take care of themselves. The problem is people don’t even notice. People just keep doing it until everyone does it and the person may not even know they are being disrespected.”
He had mentioned being passive aggressive more than once so I asked, what does that mean to you?
“Passive aggressive is anything that’s like acting like a sad dog “oh you don’t like it?” (this was said with a sarcastic exaggerated sad face and voice) Acting like they are mad just to get you to do things. Any type of feeling, acting like it’s extreme just to get them to do what you want them to do. I noticed it’s usually disrespectful guy to the girls, sometimes to each other. It’s really weird, sometimes they even try to make someone want to be closer to them by guilting them!”
I told him how insightful I thought this all was and asked him what else he thought of respect.
“Also I think people mistake being polite for being respectful. That’s just a very shallow bit. You can even seem like you are being a jerk and be being very respectful, like if you’re being honest. There are I think like three degrees of respect. Degree 1 is polite, 2nd degree verbal. Deep respect would be level 3: not doing things that make the other person uncomfortable, either sexual or not sexual. I notice at the beginning of school they only talk about the sexual part but that’s not the only part.”
I asked him what else he noticed about respect.
“I notice the guys do things for the girl she doesn’t always need or want and then expect her to do things for them and get mad when she doesn’t. I also notice these messages they tell guys that aren’t true like you have to have a girlfriend! and all of the things they tell girls, of course, like you need to wear short shorts for a guy to like you. All this stuff based on fake love and it clouds many minds. They act like it’s a game. Then sometimes the fake love turns to fake hate! I realize this is just a door; I don’t have to go in there and play that game with those people.”
At this point, I’m completely humbled. I started this discussion with the mindset of the grown-up who was going to make use of a teaching moment. I ended it with a solid reminder to never underestimate people or what they might have to tell you, even when you are in the “teacher” role.
I was feeling that floaty awesome feeling you get in those moments when you feel like you are doing something right as a parent. Then he moved on to the next subject…a twerking incident at school. Then when I told him this was really his blog and maybe he should think of a pseudonym. His ideas included Ninja and Jedi but he felt strongly putting them together would be best. Then there was a story of his Ninjaness at school in an attempt to distract me from making him go to bed. I guess he’s back to being your average 13-year-old boy.
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Photo—Enokson/Flickr
Veronica, your son is wise beyond his years and picks up on social cues very quickly. Prayerfully, not only would he use this wisdom in his later days but also teach his peers the same level of mutual respect. Many blessings to your family and your son for a job well done.
To hear of a 13 year old who especially in these hyper- commercialized times is so insightful is amazing (in a wonderful sense) Today youth and adults are led to believe by pop culture that success is a statistically measured sort of thing. How many girlfriends/boyfriends, how many 10’s , how many did you ‘score’ with! I think your son has realized Happiness is success! So Mom, take a bow (you’re entitled!) and keep having those talks!
“I’ve noticed that the boys at school that are not respectful to girls are mostly the ones that have girlfriends.” When I went to school, it was always the most beautiful girls that had boyfriends. Even though yes, some of these boys didn’t always treat the girls very well. I think it’s important to teach boys to pay attention to all types of girls, not just a certain type. It would have been a good time to ask him what he thought about girls that didn’t have boyfriends or asked him why he thought those girls stayed girlfriends to boys… Read more »
Oh yes, we definitely talk about that. All of that. He’s a talker(o: and I’m talking advantage of it!
He really is and most people never notice. I think they don’t expect that from an exuberant active teenage boy. But I know he is always watching and always thinking. Always. It keeps me on my toes, helps me stay focused on living the stuff I want him to see.
And having learned to notice girls who don’t go for disrespectful boys could also benefit peers who may not yet be aware of this dynamic.
A separate question I have is: How do kids unconsciously fall into this dynamic? This pattern doesn’t emerge from a vacuum – they’re picking it up from the larger culture. But I’m curious as to exactly how that happens.
I think that is the age old question, how much of what we do comes from the larger culture and how does that work? and most interestingly to me is what makes some people not buy into it…and how do we get more of that!
What is wrong with being friends with girls? My 13 yo son hung out with his friends last Friday, 3 girls, plus his 9 year old cousin…they hung out at the school yard, ran around, got frozen yogurt, then hung out at the library and met some other friends….and gossiped about the mean and inconsiderate way his best friend had broken up with his girlfriend…. We talked about it afterwards…I tried to just mostly listen and affirm the negative feelings he and his friends had for their now ostracized friend….I just said maybe they should not have gone out as… Read more »
It sounds like he’s being a very nice guy. And as the other commenters have said, this puts him at risk of falling into the “friend” category. It seems that for guys, we either follow the rules and are nice guys and alone, or we become a jerk so you are not alone. I think people underestimate the ability females have to influence male behaviour. If all women rejected men who were jerks, that behaviour would disappear pretty quickly. But, this hasn’t happened – women seem to encourage jack ass behaviour in guys. Lots of women like dating a bad… Read more »
One thing I’ve noticed is that Women seem to be attracted to men who live dangerous lives (No, not ALL Women, but many). The old saying “There’s something about a Man in uniform, well think about it. Police ,Soldiers, and this obsession with firemen (The ‘Fireman’ male strippers, the ‘Hunky Firemen’ calendars). Now my soon to be 22 year old son has always had his share of ‘Friends’ who were girls, a few of them FWB’s, but since he’s been deployed to Afghanistan , well, let’s just say he’s getting a lot more interest from many of them.
Bobbt, Good point and I’m gonna say something that will more then likely stir up a hornets’ nest but oh well. If you read through the different responses it appears that some look at these guys as being the proverbial “bad guys” that gals are attracted to. Are they “bad guys” or do they represent the more traditional masculine roles? Contrary to much of what GMP puts out that relates to the redefinition n of “masculine” or “manly” … could it be that gals are in fact attracted to the more traditional masculine roles? There appears to be a push… Read more »
Tom, I think it’s what the man in the uniform represents. Things like loyatly, responsibility, bravery, strength, honor….. good qualities. Although we all know not all men who where a uniform are such things and not all men who don’t can be such things. I would also say that I do think that women would like to see men grown and change in certain ways but traditional roles for both men and women don’t have to be bad or inhibit our ability to grow in other ways. It doesn’t have to be all one way or the other. There can… Read more »
“Tom, I think it’s what the man in the uniform represents. Things like loyatly, responsibility, bravery, strength, honor….. good qualities.” … you’re right and a uniform doesn’t make it so. But it is what’s expected of them. Funny, now that I am an older generation, I see so many people talk about expanding who men are yet in my early years, we did have a lot of variety, many had expanded. I went to the Chicago Art Institute and ya wanna talk about variety? Between artists, theater and design … we had it all. But then came the “men are… Read more »
Erin, I couldn’t agree more! “Loyalty, responsibility, bravery, strength, honor. ” These, along with potentially sacrificing your life for others, are considered ‘Good Qualities’ for men. As in ‘Male Disposability’ (Save the women and children!) And even with Feminism in full bloom, these ‘old fashioned’ qualities persist. Hey, my son feels that even if he survives until spring at F.O.B. (Forward Operations Base) Apache, they’ll probably be heading to Syria next!
@leia:
What is wrong with being friends with girls?
There is to the best of my knowledge nothing wrong with being freinds with girls.
But experience says that most of us will eventually meet someone we’d very much want to be something more than “just” friends with.
(And also, being around to, repeatedly, see someone’s crushes blow up in their face will make you feel… frustrated and powerless.)
Nevertheless he is highlighting the “women only like jerks” issue that, if he continues to be a decent fellow, will plague him his entire life if alternative strategies aren’t suggested; and may lead to “misogyny by bitter experience” rather than “misogyny by socialization”. It is the old question “how can I be sexy without being a jerk?” My friends nineteen year old daughter, who I kind of have a paternal relationship with, since I knew her from being a baby and I was one of the males that was frequently around during her upbringing, long before I had any children… Read more »
I do think(hope, use all power and influence at my disposal to guarantee) he will be a good man. I am also working on areas to keep the bitterness from becoming a problem. One of the things I work hard on to teach and embody in our house is not being resentful you didn’t get something, especially something you didn’t want anyway. And let’s face it, if what you want is a healthy relationship then no matter how much you think you want that person…you would not be getting what you really want anyway if they are looking for a… Read more »
Yes true. Here’s the thing; you can’t change people’s tastes – well that’s not entirely true; you can to a certain extent; you can shift accepted norms through story-telling in films, dramas, songs etc. We can work on that! However, in the first place, if being a jerk is taking a short-cut to achieve things; for example if a girl wants to know a guy genuinely wants her then the jerk has the advantage because he treats any attempt to get rid of him as a challenge – he treats the whole thing like a telesales rep turning all the… Read more »
A yes I do know of sales training. It made me sort of ill. The thing is…do you want someone that you have to “sell” yourself too? Do you want someone that you have to have status to get? It may look like the assholes are getting more women, and maybe they are…but are they really getting what you actually want? It seems to me that what good men want is not necessarily the same thing that the assholes are getting. It’s not the real connection or the healthy relationship the healthy men I know are trying to find. So… Read more »
I think you’re disregarding parts of the issue in order to over-simplify the case here. To use your own analogy, What if I want a twinkie but all I ever have the ingredients for is a sand-cake? It seems to me that what good men want is not necessarily the same thing that the assholes are getting. It’s not the real connection or the healthy relationship the healthy men I know are trying to find. Connection and communication are two-way streets. Just because persons A and B doesn’t have connection, doesn’t mean that A is inherently incapable of having connection… Read more »
I found this article about the subject insightful. http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/12/but-why-do-some-women-go-for-aholes/
That has some good stuff, thanks for posting it.
So basically, what the article says is that we’ve all got job to do, but the bottom line is that the reason (some) women go for a*holes is, That’s the only kind there is…!!
And let’s face it, if what you want is a healthy relationship then no matter how much you think you want that person…you would not be getting what you really want anyway if they are looking for a destructive dynamic.
A relationship isn’t static or pre-destined.
It’s a journey with (at least) the two people involved. It is what you (they) make of it, and I’d be hard-pressed to say that anyone, least of all a 13-year-old, actually WANT a destructive relationship…
“I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret, I want to know what you want, I don’t want to burden you unfairly with unwanted responsibility for my emotions” Exactly my thoughts! I was actually feeling incredibly depressed yesterday about my situation. I have in the last 2 months, moved to a small mining community. I am fit, I have a full-time job (teacher – earning a third of what the other blokes out here are earning), living out of home, mid-20’s, nothing to lose, everything to gain. Yet, I can’t seem… Read more »