FYI (If You’re the Parent of Boys)
Several years ago now, I was watching an episode of the TLC show about the Duggar family — 17 Kids and Counting, I believe it was called then, though I think they currently have 19 children, and I’m not sure they still have a show (I’m afraid to check).
In this episode, a bunch of the older kids were out and about, and one of the teen daughters, in an aside to the camera, explained how her family dealt with the boys being in places — as in, anyplace other than home — that might contain women dressed immodestly. They’d walk along the sidewalk in a line, the oldest girls in front scanning the crowd for something immodest like, I don’t know, shorts. And that girl’s responsibility would be to sing a tune that was a pre-arranged signal for her brothers to avert their eyes.
Because if they don’t look, they won’t be tempted. If they don’t see, they won’t think.
My thought back then was, Yeah, that’ll work. Because healthy humans never just sort of spontaneously think about sex. I was reminded of a factoid I learned many years go about the Victorians; they would cover beautifully carved tables with floor-length cloths to keep men from being titillated by the finely-turned legs on furniture.
I think about the Duggars the Victorians today thanks to Mrs. Hall. Oh, you don’t know who Mrs. Hall is? She’s the mom of four who wrote a blog post called “FYI (If You’re a Teenage Girl)”, in which she implores the anonymous teen girls out there on the Interwebs to stop putting up half-clad selfies on their Facebook pages, because they were messing with her (perfect, blonde, upstanding) teen sons’ mind-purity.
She tries to say it in a nice way: “Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pj’s this summer!” — but it essentially comes across as “stop tempting my sons because they cannot be held responsible.” Once they see you in your cute (read: sexy) PJs, braless; or in a towel; or striking a sultry pose, her sons (or anyone’s sons) can’t, as she quips, “un-see” it. And somehow this means they can’t be blamed if your photos change the way they think of you. You slut.
See, it’s that teen girl’s responsibility to keep Mrs. Hall’s boys’ minds free of impure thoughts, because once they have those thoughts, they don’t go away. (As with the Duggars’ quaint avert-your-eyes dance, it’s almost laughable, right?) Once those boys see a braless girl in a sexy selfie, they are not to be blamed if the image that remains lodged in their brains forever is that of a sexually available slut-bag they are not required to have respect for. Because she ruined that.
Even if the next time they see her (or any girl or woman) she’s in her Duggar costume or her varsity field-hockey uniform or her doctor coat or the high heels and mini skirt she wears when she’s a grown woman out with friends and turns down a dark alley to go home. You see where I’m going here.
I don’t think it’s a smart idea to take sexy selfies of your 14-year-old self and paste them online. I also don’t think it’s a smart idea to totter down a dark alley alone. But neither of those possibly poor choices means that any boy or man in the vicinity gets a pass on what he thinks of that girl or woman; or worse, gets a pass on what his thoughts might lead him to do.
Getting the theme here? Preventing boys from getting the wrong idea about girls, according to Mrs. Hall (and Mr. and Mrs. Duggar, and certain Republican congress people) is up to the girls.
Is there no responsibility to be taken by the boys? The Duggar boys, Mrs. Hall’s boys, my boys? Your boys?
My initial thought about that Duggar tradition of the girls singing to prompt their brothers to close their eyes to potential female temptation was that it was just plain silly. But thinking about it now, post-Steubenville and post-Miley and post-Robin Thicke? It’s not silly. It’s a short amble from there over to the insidious “she asked for it.”
Sometimes people tell me I should be glad I have sons because they’re easier. Well, yes, probably in some ways (hair, maybe?). But that’s starting to sound like yet another get-out-of-parenting-tough-stuff-free card, too. I don’t get a pass from teaching my boys to not treat girls like crap, even if those girls appear to lack self-respect.
Fellow boy mamas: what do you think?
September 6, 2013 @ 9:02 am
My father is a big man who is also kind of mean. I tell my son, all the time: when dealing with girls, think about how Grandad would react if someone did that to one of your girl cousins. If Grandad would be calling for a smackdown, don’t do it.
It works. I hope.
But seriously – no one, of any gender, gets a pass on learning to respect others.
September 6, 2013 @ 9:33 am
As the mother to 3 teenage boys (no girls), I completely understand where you are coming from. Ironically, I just wrote a post on this very subject. Yes, of course, men have to be responsible for their actions. Period. However, it’s a challenge to teach my boys about respecting women or relating to women on an equal playing field when they see these images or women not showing respect for themselves. As a woman who grew up in the 1970s, I’ve seen how far we’ve come but I have to ask, is this what the Women’s Movement fought so hard for?
September 6, 2013 @ 9:35 am
Christina, thanks. I know what you mean. Miley Cyrus is born into a world in which she has many choices open to her, thanks to her predecessors. But the choices she’s making… Eh.
September 6, 2013 @ 9:48 am
BTW, I just got another email about the very same post. And I thought, “where the hell have I been?” So of course, I had to click over and read the original. I get her gist, and in some respect, I understand it but she does come off a bit holier-than-thou. She needed to think a bit more before she hit the keyboard. It’s a tough world out there…..I just hope I can raise men of character.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:56 am
There’s the task at hand Christina, you hit it on the nail – How to raise “men of character”.
I have two young boys and i think about it all the time. Am I relieved not to have girls and have to worry about their hair, their clothes, whether they get into “boy” trouble? Mostly yes. But I know as my boys grow older I’ll worry when they leave the house: “Did I do my job, did I raise them right, will they respect women and treat them well?”….time will tell.
Parents of boys definitely do not get a free pass on the tough parenting, oh no they do not…if anything (scantily clad selfies are just the tip of the iceberg after all) it is going to be even harder for us!
September 6, 2013 @ 11:55 am
Who are you t say they aren’t respecting themselves? That’s just another excuse to blame things on girls. No one gets to define self-respect as dressing like a puritan.
September 6, 2013 @ 9:42 am
Thank you for putting into words what I was feeling when I read this lady’s post.
I’m not going to be able to explain this well…It reminded me of an episode of Anthony Bourdain in Saudi Arabia I saw years ago. His guide (a woman) was explaining that they have two entrances to many places. One for men and one for families. Essentially, the reason they needed to do that was because men couldn’t behave themselves around women. The guide said that it was not to punish the women, it was to keep the single men away from the women, punish the men. I brushed it off as well that is a different country, it’s messed up that they have to do all this crazy stuff instead of just making it the man’s responsibility to not rape women in the first place. But I see our country is not really that far off.
I grew up with an early feminist mom who raise me to be independent. I never once felt like I was less for being a girl and I know that has been a norm for most of the girls I grew up with. The issue seems to be that no one started raising the boys with the same mentality.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:57 am
I think what she meant is that the men refuse to control themselves. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they won’t.
September 6, 2013 @ 10:11 am
I saw that post and thought it was ironic that the photos she chose of her sons were all shirtless muscleman beach shots.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:00 am
I just posted this link on your FB post: http://www.time-warp-wife.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-she-only-knew-thoughts-on-modesty.html . When I read this a few months ago, my first thought was, “That poor boy.” Then reading the comments I saw where someone actually admitted their daughters alert the *father* whenever they think he should avert his eyes from the female form. Now that’s creepy.
Raising boys to be suspicious of the female form is just a disaster in the making. I would bet money that porn addiction among these boys is sky-high.
September 7, 2013 @ 5:13 pm
Wow. I just clicked over and read that “If She Only Knew Post.” I’ve never seen such a blatant example of blaming women for their potential effect on men.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:08 am
I also bet these boys aren’t embarrassed at seeing the female form … they’re humiliated they have to admit to MOM they’ve got a boner. Sheesh.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:11 am
Erm… well said, Diana! (The fun we have to look forward to!). Actually, we had an unwitting conversation about boners the other night. James (almost 9) said, “sometimes my penis is small and sometimes it’s big. Why?”
“It likes to stretch,” said my husband.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:59 am
I just sprayed coffee. Thanks Denise!
September 6, 2013 @ 11:29 am
I’m not a mom-of-boys but a dad-of-girls, and I think you’re completely spot-on, Denise. I was pretty horrified at this mom’s cutesy ha-ha-I-ban-you-for-not-gatekeeping message.
My girls will be taught not to put naked, or naked-ish, photos on the Intertubes, and their Intertubing will be monitored, and Daddy will drop on them like a ton of bricks if they aren’t careful about their privacy. But, and here is the big but, it’s about their privacy and about the fundamentally insecure and ineradicable nature of data on the Internet. Not about someone else’s risk of being tempted, faugh. Not about gatekeeping. Not about their responsibility to police others’ interest or arousal. Because it’s not their job.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:32 am
You know, I read that article, too. I can see Mrs. Hall’s point in that she’s trying to educate the girls she doesn’t have on what should be proper in a digital world. She is correct in that girls shouldn’t be taking sexy selfies and posting them online where any idiot can find them. She is correct in that others may change their opinions based on those sexy selfies posted online where any idiot can find them. What she does not seem to understand is that boys should be held to the same standards. She wants the girls to be responsible not only for themselves, but for the actions of others. She contends that if they don’t dress like slutbags and act like they want all the sex, boys won’t think about them that way. I don’t know what dream world she’s living in. Boys have brains and they should be using them. Just because a girl dresses like a slutbag and acts like she wants sex all the time, that does not give anyone the right, EVER, to act upon that without her explicit permission. Boys can control their actions. Girls can control their actions. That means that both are responsible for their own actions.
I hope to teach my son to be respectful of everyone, regardless of gender. I don’t expect him to not think about sex in his teenage years because, honestly, that’s just biology. I do expect him not to act on anything without permission. Thankfully, I have quite a few years to teach him that as he’s not even three years old yet.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:59 am
Except that what is respectable to her may not be to someone else. She doesn’t get to decide the morals and values of the entire country.
September 6, 2013 @ 11:32 am
As a mom of one boy and four girls (2 of them teenagers now), I think this is right on! Thank you.
September 6, 2013 @ 12:06 pm
I teach my daughters that if they respect themselves it will be easier for other people (including boys) to respect them, too.
September 6, 2013 @ 1:26 pm
If your son sees a silly, suggestive pic of a girl and immediately thinks of that girl in such a negative light, that’s your real problem.
September 6, 2013 @ 1:55 pm
Here’s the thing: It is near impossible to avoid visually stimulating images in our culture. Even if I were to somehow always go before my boys, singing at the sight of temptation, ala Duggar family, or to police and delete the photos their friends send them, ala Mrs. Hall, my boys will someday go into the world or online alone. They will see sexy, provocative images of women, and there is no way I can control what pops into their minds. What I CAN do is model respect for all people. What I can do is talk early and often about respecting all people, regardless of appearance or status. I can teach my boys that both men and women are valuable,and I can teach them, through my words and deeds, that what’s inside people counts a whole lot more than what’s on the outside.
Those aren’t easy lessons, especially in a culture that often seems hell-bent on teaching other lessons. Those are lessons that need to be taught and reinforced over and over again. But if I want to build great boys, I have a responsibility to teach my boys respect.
September 6, 2013 @ 2:36 pm
I’m so bothered when topics like modesty and sex are addressed in a way that says “You can’t control yourself or your thoughts, because you have a Y chromosome. ” If that was the truth, my only option would be to lock my sons in a tower forever. Fortunately, it’s not. Absolutely, we try to mitigate and moderate what our kids see- but we have to use the teachable moments so they can learn how to react appropriately.
September 6, 2013 @ 4:04 pm
I think it is odd for a kid to take all those selfies! I would rather see pictures of girls actually doing things! It seems vain, or stuck up, even. I always encouraged my boys to meet up with girls with energy and motivation, and pointed out that some girls are just a pretty face! That’s all they have going for them.
September 6, 2013 @ 5:49 pm
My boys aged 8 and 10 are being raised as gentlemen. Old fashioned? Yes. They open doors, let the lady go first, and are exceedingly respectful. However, this does not mean that they give respect where it is not deserved. By the same token, they are never permitted to be DISrespectful. I think it is plainly the girl’s responsibility not to cheapen herself. I think there is no reason for a pre-teen to be taking boudoir photos. I think that in many ways, the girl to be held responsible is the mother for permitting if not reinforcing such poor choices and a mind-set in her daughter that the only thing she could ever be good for or worth seen as is a sex toy. Accordingly, it is absolutely the boy’s responsibility to control himself and his urges. Molestation and rape are about power and control, not sex. Differentiating those would surely assist in crystallizing the issue as one of self-respect … on both parts.
September 10, 2013 @ 3:04 pm
My take is that avoidance doesn’t solve problems, and that goes for just about everything. When it comes to teaching and guiding, withholding exposure never really taught anything.
It reminds me of a family I babysat for many years ago who had removed obvious marketing packaging from their home, all the cereal was put into plain plastic bins, for example. And I wondered, how will their children learn to cope with all the marketing they will eventually find themselves surrounded by? How will that affect what they think about corporations, or even governments? Instead of pretending that marketing doesn’t exist, shouldn’t kids be taught tools to deal with its onslaught in a positive, practical manner?
So the same goes for the myriad of ways our sons will be exposed to women. When I look at societies where women are forced to dress very modestly and separated from men because seeing a woman’s form supposedly leads to impure thoughts, the women are invariably repressed, distrusted, and mistreated, which leads to a whole host of other problems that range from economic to political. Don’t want to go there.
So, as the mom of a son, I don’t plan to protect him from the young girls and women who pose provocatively for all the world to see. But I do fully intend to teach him what is worthy of respect and how I hope he chooses to live his life. If I can teach him that, then when a respectable woman comes along he will hopefully be worthy of hers.
September 11, 2013 @ 4:08 pm
I’m reminded of this post: http://imgur.com/FWFlYTW
How about just teaching kids to respect each other? My son will grow up knowing that he is responsible for his own behavior, and that the misadventures of others – perceived or otherwise – do not give him license to behave inappropriately.
October 17, 2013 @ 12:43 pm
All I can add to this is amen!
September 13, 2013 @ 8:02 am
Yep. I’m not raising victims. They are 100% responsible for their thoughts and actions. I happen to have 2 boys, but if they were girls, I would believe the same thing.
When I was a girl, I had my period when I was 11 and my boobs exploded soon after. From then on, my adolescence was about my boobs: how they made other people (boys & men) feel, how they looked, how they should be covered under loose garments at all times, how I should be glaring at older men who noticed them (at 12 I was oblivious!) Message received. No matter the other qualities I was trying to cultivate, the only important one was BOOBS and how men reacted to them was somehow my fault and my responsibility. It took me a long time to get out from under that.
I thought Kristen Howerton wrote a very thoughtful response to Mrs. Hall’s post: http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2013/09/on-respect-responsibility-and-mrs-halls.html
September 13, 2013 @ 8:23 am
Caroline, thank you, and thanks for linking to Kristen’s post, which was wonderful.
As for your experience as a young girl, I can’t directly relate (I was a late bloomer, for which, now, I’m quite grateful!). But I DO remember how early-sprouting girls were treated and how they acted — either trying to hide themselves or flaunting in ways that clearly (to my eyes at the time) looked uncomfortable and unnatural. And I think it’s tougher now; when I was 13 and there were girls who looked like women, there wasn’t ALSO an active Internet (well, or any Internet!), and no Instagram or smartphones or… well,you get the point.
Thanks for weighing in!
Denise
November 4, 2013 @ 9:39 am
As a mom of two boys, I’ve gotta agree with you. Men, even when they are young boys, have a primal streak a mile wide, and the problem today isn’t that they have the streak; it’s that their momma’s and daddy’s don’t teach them how to practice restraint with their eyes, their brains, and their more physical attributes. Having sons and a daughter has really shown us that you have to teach your kids not only how to act, but how to react. Then, when they reach their teenage years, we can at least say we tried. =) Drop in and say hi at my blog, http://semanticsister.blogspot.com. I really enjoy your writing.