All The Little Girls Hitting On My Son Need To Back Off

Last year a young girl came over for a play date with my son. She informed him and me that first, they’d kiss a little. Next,  they’d go lie upstairs in his bed. Finally, after a snack, they’d go and play in the basement. They were both five years old.

A few weeks later, he came home in tears. He’d been punished for pushing a (different) girl. When asked why he did it, he explained that she told him he’d be the only boy invited to her birthday party and he’d have to kiss all the girls there. As in he was the party. A kissing party.

H-e-e-e-y now. Who knew my little man was such a stud? In preschool, no less. Secretly, I was kind of proud. The ladies loved him. Already! Turns out he wasn’t alone. I soon learned that all the girls in his kindergarten class had chosen their mates, the boys they’d be marrying in the future and they ones they were in love with now. The boys had little say in the matter, despite protestations and the odd shove. My son was one of many five-year-old boys who found himself the object of affection of some seriously boy-crazy girls.

Was it always like this? Or are there simply too many hormones in the milk these days?

The girls were on fire. It was ladies’ night, every night, and the boys were starting to get a bit intimidated. Suddenly, my son wouldn’t play with his girlfriends anymore. I figured it was a phase, the ambivalence that comes before the hormonal full court press. I watched the sexual dynamics unfold in the playground. Were these girls completely confident? Or were they budding sluts? I really couldn’t get my head around it.

The other moms and I discussed it. While it was kind of funny watching the dance play out, it grew more intense with chasing and taunting. Beyond the hair-pulling and lunchbox hiding shenanigans one expects from little kids of the opposite sex, this looked more like swarming.

My older son, now in third grade, told me he hasn’t liked girls since he was four, when one of his classmates came over and told him she was a damsel in distress who needed to be rescued. He told her to rescue herself and then come play basketball. Now these creatures of the opposite sex are his friends on the soccer field, his desk mates in the classroom and ”just girls” the rest of the time. When they tease him and they do I tell him it’s because they like him. He blushes to his ears and pretends he hasn’t heard me. That seems age-appropriate to me.

Full disclosure: I was a bit of a kissing bandit myself. Yep, even back in preschool there was one boy over whom I was completely gaga. We’d play kissing tag and I’d announce to anyone within earshot that I’d marry him one day. We were good friends. To this day when I bump into this married father of two with my husband, we laugh about it.

But these six-year-old girls? I don’t get it. I’m hoping now that they’re in first grade, they’ll calm down a little bit. It’s not that they aren’t sweet and cute and funny. They are. But it’s a bit full-on. Isn’t it? I always fancied myself to be progressive, but maybe I’m out to lunch. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t think any of them are good enough. Not for my boy.

(Photo: lanych/Shutterstock)