Moms of sons - do you guide your son to be respectful of girls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom walked into that school meeting with a huge chip on her shoulder and an enormous sense of self importance. Instead of listening to both sides of the story (and there are always two sides) she decided to view everyone but her daughter as guilty.

Maybe her daughter had snapped the waist band of this boy's boxers first. Maybe he thought that he was just dorking around when he snapped the girl's bra. But we'll never know because Mama Bear came in and started using intimidation and fighting words and seemed happy that the boy's mom was disolved into tears.

In answer to the question, of course I've taught my boys to respect girls. In fact, I've taught them to view girls as equals, friends, allies. But they are to expect the same thing in return. No less.

WTF? Yeah, that's a great excuse for repeatedly grabbing a girl's undergarments despite her asking you to stop.

Again. Not saying that this was appropriate. But context is important. If this girl walked up and smacked him on the butt in the hall in a joking manner, he may have snapped her bra in return. Yes, "Dorking around". Just like she was "Dorking around" when she smacked his butt.

If he was just sitting behind her in class and started snapping her bra and she said "Stop it" and he persisted and the teacher told HER to settle down. Totally different scenario.

I agree. What if the boy was in kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade and he had watched a bunch of girls snapping each other's bras and they laughed so he thought it was funny. I am sure I hadn't even talked to my elementary school kids about bras or would have foreseen an incident like that.

Context is important?

How common is it that girls snap each other's bras? I have never ever seen this.

I remember girls (usually friends) doing stuff like that to each other in middle school - they snapped each others bras, grabbed towels off each other in the gym locker room, smacked and pinched each other on the butt. Yes, girls who were friends did this. Not something I did but something I saw other girls do to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I remember girls (usually friends) doing stuff like that to each other in middle school - they snapped each others bras, grabbed towels off each other in the gym locker room, smacked and pinched each other on the butt. Yes, girls who were friends did this. Not something I did but something I saw other girls do to each other.

I'm not saying it never happens. But in my entire middle-school experience of being a girl, no girl ever snapped my bra, and I never snapped any girl's bra. In contrast, plenty of boys snapped my bra (and this went in the category of "boys will be boys").

[Anonymous]

As a mother of both boys and girls, I am incredibly tired of this constant, "Have you talked to your boys about..." Yes, I have. I've also talked to my daughters about the same issues. Really sick of parents of only girls pointing their finger constantly at boys. Do you talk to your girls about not sexting naked pictures of themselves? Plenty of teachable moments there, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach all of my kids to be respectful of everyone. Why are girls special?

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Gosh no, OP. Never occurred to me until you posted this. Thanks to your good work, I think we can all expect sexual assaults to be eliminated in our lifetime. If only previous generations of mothers had message boards, it could have been eliminated long ago.

[Anonymous]

Mom of boys. Good for her and mom. If that happened to my child, I would be very proud of her for handling it. I would have preferred she tell me first and I try but at least now no boy will probably mess with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A terrifyingly high number of men have committed rape.

4.5% of the men in the United States is an incredibly high number – that translates into over six million men.

I wonder if we did a better job of teaching respect starting at a young age, would this number be lower?

Junk science!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach all of my kids to be respectful of everyone. Why are girls special?

+1

[Anonymous]

I see the MRAs have found this thread, along with the militant moms-of-only-sons who think their boys can do no wrong.

I have a daughter and a son and will absolutely be teaching BOTH of them how to respect themselves, others, and the people they date. How to be a good boy/girlfriend, how to break up with someone civilly but decisively...and yes, DS will definitely get an extra talk on respecting sexual boundaries. This is just parenting. It's not "insulting." Jesus, some of you look for drama and outrage everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see the MRAs have found this thread, along with the militant moms-of-only-sons who think their boys can do no wrong.

I have a daughter and a son and will absolutely be teaching BOTH of them how to respect themselves, others, and the people they date. How to be a good boy/girlfriend, how to break up with someone civilly but decisively...and yes, DS will definitely get an extra talk on respecting sexual boundaries. This is just parenting. It's not "insulting." Jesus, some of you look for drama and outrage everywhere.

I'm also a mother to both boys and girls. I don't blame men for all of society's evils, as so many of you clearly do. It's just common sense and good parenting to have these talks with all kids, regardless of gender. Of course boys need to be taught how to be respectful of girls, and much of that is teaching by example. Do the fathers model this behavior to their wives?

We teach our boys to be respectful of girls and to be mindful of physical and sexual boundaries. We teach our girls to respect themselves and their bodies. Both our boys AND girls know to be respectful of one another, and to not treat anyone cruelly. We don't single our boys out to shame them based on the behavior of a certain small subset of boys/men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm also a mother to both boys and girls. I don't blame men for all of society's evils, as so many of you clearly do. It's just common sense and good parenting to have these talks with all kids, regardless of gender. Of course boys need to be taught how to be respectful of girls, and much of that is teaching by example. Do the fathers model this behavior to their wives?

We teach our boys to be respectful of girls and to be mindful of physical and sexual boundaries. We teach our girls to respect themselves and their bodies. Both our boys AND girls know to be respectful of one another, and to not treat anyone cruelly. We don't single our boys out to shame them based on the behavior of a certain small subset of boys/men.

It's interesting that you teach your boys and your girls different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm also a mother to both boys and girls. I don't blame men for all of society's evils, as so many of you clearly do. It's just common sense and good parenting to have these talks with all kids, regardless of gender. Of course boys need to be taught how to be respectful of girls, and much of that is teaching by example. Do the fathers model this behavior to their wives?

We teach our boys to be respectful of girls and to be mindful of physical and sexual boundaries. We teach our girls to respect themselves and their bodies. Both our boys AND girls know to be respectful of one another, and to not treat anyone cruelly. We don't single our boys out to shame them based on the behavior of a certain small subset of boys/men.

It's interesting that you teach your boys and your girls different things.

Actually, I should have included the fact that we also teach our girls to be mindful of physical and sexual boundaries as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, very much so. Beyond teaching them respect, I have drilled into them that the idea that the girl is somehow the goalie while the boy is the one trying to score is ridiculous and as outdated as concepts can be (and yet still so prevalent).

Especially since both of my boys are athletes and too many people still believe that rules do not apply to football players.

+1
I teach the respect for all rule first but I also recognize that there is still this very old meme (bolded) that persists and I refuse to not address it directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a mother of both boys and girls, I am incredibly tired of this constant, "Have you talked to your boys about..." Yes, I have. I've also talked to my daughters about the same issues. Really sick of parents of only girls pointing their finger constantly at boys. Do you talk to your girls about not sexting naked pictures of themselves? Plenty of teachable moments there, too.

Totally agree.
I'm the mom of a teen football player popular high school kid. (Mention that as football players were called out in previous post)
Of course I teach my son to respect girls. We tell our son to treat all girls as he expects his sisters boyfriends to treat her.

Yet while we teach that, the sexual text messages and sexy pictures from girls continue to flow into his phone. I Doubt these girls mothers have a clue what their daughters are sending and if they saw what I see, their jaws would drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mother of both boys and girls, I am incredibly tired of this constant, "Have you talked to your boys about..." Yes, I have. I've also talked to my daughters about the same issues. Really sick of parents of only girls pointing their finger constantly at boys. Do you talk to your girls about not sexting naked pictures of themselves? Plenty of teachable moments there, too.

Totally agree.
I'm the mom of a teen football player popular high school kid. (Mention that as football players were called out in previous post)
Of course I teach my son to respect girls. We tell our son to treat all girls as he expects his sisters boyfriends to treat her.

Yet while we teach that, the sexual text messages and sexy pictures from girls continue to flow into his phone. I Doubt these girls mothers have a clue what their daughters are sending and if they saw what I see, their jaws would drop.

He can block them, FWIW.