Welcome to Teenage Dating

I’m supposed to be editing or writing or taking care of book reviews. Instead, I’m here responding to this post: It’s Not ‘Cute’ When Dads Threaten My Son For Dating Their Daughter. Why, you might ask, am I talking about this post (which is old, but was reposted on Ravishly yesterday) instead of getting my work done? It’s simple: We’ve now entered this phase of our son’s life. With his permission, I’m going to talk a bit about some of it.

The other day, in the car, my middle schooler lamented how all his friends were pairing off, but he was too shy to ask anyone out. Here’s the thing—my son is truly oblivious to his appeal. He was recently in his school musical, and at one point, a particular girl asked him to sign her show poster. Within fifteen seconds, he was surrounded by a flock of girls (and several boys) all wanting the same. He genuinely has no idea how many people like him.

Anyway, the outcome of it all was that he decided to ask a girl out for ice cream to get to know her. His idea of the perfect date: Ice cream, talking, and “maybe I’ll even get a hug at the end!” (They’re 12; this sounds about right.) She said yes, if her parents are okay with it.

That all sounds great, right? Now to the article. First, let me say that I’m in agreement. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s really good. As a person parenting both a son and a daughter (they do both identify as cisgender), the post is spot-on.

When I’ve brought up the subject of my son and dating, I so far have not encountered the “I’ll kill you if you touch her” attitude—yet. I guess he’s not quite old enough for that. But I have run into “I was that age once.” Lemme stop you right there. I sincerely do not care how YOU were as a twelve-year-old boy. We weren’t discussing YOU. We were talking about my son, and if you have some temptation to believe you know him better than he knows himself or better than I know him, you can kindly take a hike. You don’t somehow have the right to talk over us just because at his age you:

• Identified (sexual orientation) the same way he does but have since identified yourself differently
• Behaved in some gross and misogynistic way toward girls
• Excused your own poor behavior with “hormones”
• Didn’t tell your parents things about yourself or your dating life

You don’t know our family or how these talks go in our house. You haven’t sat at our dinner table, privy to our conversations about consent, health and safety, mutual satisfaction in relationships, and respect. You haven’t had multiple discussions with my kids about sexuality and gender. You haven’t heard us talk about how their consent is just as important as the other person’s consent and how to spot unhealthy patterns in friendships or dating. You haven’t witnessed a lifetime of two kids being open about their journey of self-discovery.

On the flip side of this coin—the threats of bodily harm against boys—is the belief that girls who initiate the relationship are too forward (I’m putting it politely). I have seen moms get so indignant when they think a girl is calling their son too much or being “aggressive.” They may not have shotguns, but they sure do like to pull out the name-calling.

One of the things I like about the girl my son asked out (yes, I’ve met her) is that she’s bold enough to get his attention. He’s an extrovert, but he can be shy about his crushes. I loved that she took initiative! I thought it was really sweet. She’s a very nice girl, and they seem to have a lot in common. She obviously likes him, so what’s wrong with her letting him know?

I understand, as a parent, how difficult it is to watch your kids grow up and potentially make the same choices we made a their age, if we felt we screwed up. But if you feel that way, then why haven’t you been talking with your kids about your values and why you hope they make better decisions? Wouldn’t that be far superior to threatening and shaming their potential dates? Better still, we could stop viewing adolescent exploration as some terrible thing and start providing our kids with a relationship-positive, sex-positive message in which we explicitly favor consent, safety, and mutual readiness.

Maybe my son and this girl will do the seventh grade equivalent of going out (text messages, the occasional ice cream or Disney movie, and possibly a bit of hand-holding). Or maybe they’ll find they’re better off as friends (this is how his first crush went, and they still hang out occasionally). Who knows?

I’m not having some crisis of parenthood over it. What I see is two kids who are ready to dip their toes in the water. This is part of growing up, and they seem to be doing it at a pace which feels right to them. Maybe one day, my kids won’t want to talk to me about these things anymore. Or maybe, just maybe, my lack of threats and accusations and overprotection means they’ll always know they can trust me.