Once our girls hit I’d say 14, they became interested in boys in a different way than they had been before. Understandable, it was time. Though ever since I’d known them, their Dad had told them they would not do anything with boys till they turned 25, we all knew the time was coming a lot sooner than that.
It started slow enough…this guy asked me to dance; then this guy at school told his friend to come tell me he likes me; to there’s this guy in school who asked if I could hang out. My poor husband. I’d tease the girls, looks like someone has a boyfriend, and they would take turns denying it, he’s just a friend, they’d say. I later adopted the notion of the interview. I’d say the girls were interviewing a boy for the job of boyfriend. The girls seemed to like putting it this way, then later they would let me know if he had been hired or not! This is where my husband first introduced the six inch rule. No closer than that to a boy either on the dance floor or anywhere else. I know it didn’t happen all the time, but bless him for trying.
One of our daughters has now had relationships with one guy early on who “cheated on her” so she dumped him, and then two seniors. The first one was a baseball player. He was cute , but not very well mannered and treated her poorly. I think he was his biggest fan if you know what I mean. In my opinion from observations and from what she shared with me, I saw a guy, sort of stuck on himself, who was already seeing someone else, but who got a kick out of stringing this little Freshman along. They spent time together at our place, lots of time out in the driveway at his truck which I personally didn’t care for but my husband seemed ok with. Not sure they were staying six inches from each other out there! This guy let our girl think that he was taking her to the winter formal dance that year, watched her hunt for and purchase a dress on-line, listened to her go on about it for weeks, then a few days before it, announced to her that he was taking his “old girlfriend” instead. What a jerk. She was crushed and embarrassed because by now of course the kids at school knew she thought he was taking her to this dance. She ended up getting a date last minute and she looked real pretty as they left our house that night. She forgave him that for whatever reason, then he did it again to her for his Senior prom later that year. Many sleepless nights, headaches and a couple of missed school days later, she finally gave him his walking papers. It wasn’t easy for her, but he was leaving for an out of town school on a baseball scholarship anyway, so she in effect cut him loose and in the process herself too. Off he went and in came one of his buddies to pick up the pieces and move right on in. Now we liked this new fellow very much. Very nice, well mannered, got along great with the rest of the family and especially our little boy. He was a Senior also, and he is the one whose Senior Prom she attended with him when she was a Sophomore. They spent a lot of time together, mostly at our house. I know the six inch rule went out the window this time but they kept it respectable. He stayed in town and started College. I thought sure that as soon as he looked around at all the pretty college gals, the ones with no curfew, his head would turn and we would be picking her up out of the floor. It turned out quite the opposite. Insecurity is a terrible affliction. I’m afraid our new boyfriend was covered up in it. From what I observed and what was shared with me, I would say that our girl got in over her head. At first, and I’m not proud to say this and I told her the same, I believe she played a bit on those insecurities. Mainly by bringing up the fact that boy number one was still calling her. Nice. Anyway ultimately this ended very badly I’m afraid. His Mother blocked our daughter’s number from her son’s phone because he was getting so agitated over their relationship. He got very angry at his Mom for doing that. He blew our daughter’s phone up constantly calling her. He would call when with his friends and say really mean things to her I guess. She said at other times he would call and just cry and cry. Long conversations in person and on the phone…drama, tears. Till ultimately they broke it off, and he brought a box full of every single item she had ever given him, including a home made scrap book she had given him for his High School graduation, and dumped it in our driveway. Rough business and I believe a lesson for her. When it was all said and done and in talking it over, I told her that I still believe him to be a very nice guy, with major insecurity issues. I also said that, in my opinion, a smart girl would examine her role in what had happened between them and try to learn from it. I told her that sometimes people seem to need to push other people’s buttons to somehow make themselves feel better or stronger or like they have the upper hand. I also told her that all those things are also signs of insecurity but in a different form and something she should think about.
Daughter number two seems to go from boy to boy, unfortunately I’m not certain she’s done with one before moving on, emotionally anyway, to the next one. Something that is a concern of ours. This is our “pleaser”. Her first serious boyfriend wasn’t around much , so we formed little to no opinion of him. The next guy she started getting all wrapped up with again, hardly ever came around. Dad doesn’t allow his daughters to go anywhere with a boy he hasn’t met, so this presented a problem for her and threw a major wrench in her plans from time to time. We arent sure why necessarily she hesitated to bring her friends to our home…except to say that we have expectations and let them be known to her. Shame on us, I guess. With this guy dishonest behavior on her part began to emerge as she lied to her Mother one day as to her whereabouts and went lord knows where with him for a couple hours and wasn’t able to be reached by phone. In and of itself highly unusual and by the way unacceptable. More on this in another post on dishonest behavior. So he ended up telling her he kissed another girl and smashed her heart. She was getting a dose of her own medicine as it turns out; he had been sneaking around with this girl he kissed all while supposedly in a relationship with our daughter. But he had started seeing our daughter while still in a relationshio with his former girlfriend and our daughter knew it. However interestingly enough she rebounded from this while thing almost immediately. Come to find out its because much like people do with jobs, she actually lines the next one out before she moves on. Let’s talk about the next one, Oh boy. This is the one who I shall refer to as “card board”. Because that’s what he acted like. Just a cut out in the room.
This child had no idea how to interact with adults or with other kids. He’s the one boy who came to the girls’ 16th birthday party and just stood there. It was sad actually. So she ultimately fired him for cheating too but no fear, here came the next one just as full of personality as the previous one, this experience was just weird. Do you see a trend here? Our other daughter told us that this particular boy was already involved with a classmate of theirs and that everyone knew it. She said she had tried to warn her sister against being that kind of girl, but of course this unwittingly just pushed her in the direction of that guy. Our daughter brought this up to me one day and I echoed her sisters concern that really, did she want to participate in this sort of thing, I mean she hadn’t liked it when it was done to her now, did she. This guy was so transparent but our daughter just didnt want to see it or on some level was excited by it. He’d promise her he would come over then wouldn’t. He would promise to meet her somewhere but then wouldn’t call back. He came to dinner at our house one night, and had himself dropped off at the main street and picked up there, walking to meet his ride. I’m still waiting on the thank you for dinner from this clod. His Mother, who still sends text messages to our daughter as her “friend” (weird and inappropriate) invited our daughter to an outing for her son’s birthday, during which he text someone else the entire time and left our daughter to hang out with his sister. After each episode I’d say oh come on, this is clearly a guy who feels he can’t be seen having a relationship with you! For heavens sake. She took it in stride for whatever twisted reason. Then finally, he called her right before school started back up and asked if she would be upset if he caught a ride every day that semester with his “ex”. Yeah. So our daughter answered no, if he told her she had nothing to worry about then fine. He finally admitted he still had a thing for this other girl. Really? Duh! I shall refer to him as the two timer. She cried about this one, but not to worry because there’s this really cute guy who had started talking to her…This kid seemed nice. We were forewarned by our daughter (though I don’t know why) that he had a cochlear implant and so we needed to be sure we looked at him and had eye contact when communicating. This was no problem as I have a hearing loss myself and am much that same way so the family is used to communicating like this already. This boy was very polite and spent time talking to me and my husband and playing with our little boy yeah! But alas, he too had some sort of insecurity driven angst, but in his defense no doubt driven by girlie girl talking to and lining up the next boy. So she cut this nice guy loose, and low and behold is so heart broken she’s caught meeting up the next day with the next boy in the park and is currently grounded for lying about where she was going and what she was doing that day. At the same time she is still speaking with two timer, which park boy doesn’t know, because he says he was wrong and made a mistake. Oh who cares!
Lessons learned
You can raise your kids to know the difference between right and wrong and to do the right thing, and if they are normal I’d imagine you’re still going to meet with drama, deception, manipulation and all that; especially if you have girls. We just try to be consistent, discipline where we feel we need to and try not to hold all this too much against them, it’s part of growing up.
Just as you didn’t learn for your parents mistakes, your kids won’t learn much from yours either. I’ve just tried to say what I think when asked and sometimes when not, sometimes I initiate a conversation just to open the door. If they do pick up a tidbit from me here or there then good.
Boys and girls sure are different as they maneuver through he…in and she…in. Our son would get broken up with and seem nearly unaffected. He had, I think, three gals he tinkered around with before the one he’s with now. They have been together for what, about three years maybe. No drama to speak of comparatively speaking. All we’ve seen with the girls, when it comes to relationships, is drama.
From what I’m seeing, girls are more deceptive than boys are as teens. They want what they want, and will stand right there and tell you whatever necessary to get it. Definitely have to keep on our toes as we try to see them through this phase of their lives.
Good Stepmom
Sent from the iPad of Christy Campbell
