Sane Mom Revolution: Discussion question, boys v. girls.

"It is time for a Sane Mom Revolution, in which we decline to take any more of this crap."  -- Light and Momentary

-----

I've been pushing a hashtag, here and on Facebook (where, fyi, I only friend friends; it isn't personal) and on Twitter:  #sanemomrevolution .  Check it out.  It's for sharing stories of kid-independence.  The stakes are high; a Reason/Rupe poll the other day showed that a large fraction of Americans (originally reported as 63%, later corrected to 43%) would criminalize letting 12-year-olds go to the park unsupervised.

I find that the #sanemomrevolution sparks some interesting discussions, though.  Here's some of one I had on FB the other day.  What do you think?

---

 

#Sanemomrevolution discussion question, parents of teenagers especially invited. So, I'm sending my 14yo son off on urban errands with the bus and the train and the bike and the mall and the downtown Target and library and things. I feel pretty confident about this. I find myself wondering: Will I feel as confident about sending my *daughter* (when she is 14) on similar errands? And if I don't, is that reasonable or unreasonable? Discuss.

 

---

 

Me -- "However I *feel* about it, I promise to try to be ruled by reason when the time comes."

 

---

 

C.B. --  "Our neighbor's daughter, 14, recently went to the nearby park and waited for friends to arrive. She ended up getting beaten up by a bunch of kids there and required facial reconstruction surgery. And I thought I lived in a nice neighborhood. I want to join the #sanemomrevolution but after this I need to wait and see what the police do about it."

 

C. B. -- "She was sitting at the park at a picnic bench near the basketball courts and playground. It was during daylight hours, but close to dusk. That is all I know FOR sure."

 

J. M. S. -- "I do not know if it is reasonable or unreasonable, but I feel much more cautious about my daughter. Much."

 

Me -- "Troubling anecdotes like the one C. B. just shared, I am trying to consider what the Sane Mom does with them. Because it isn't right to ignore them; they exist in a context, though. Mostly I think they become data points about specific locations."

 

C. P.  -- "Who knows what will be in 6 years?"  

 Me -- "Yeah, I can't help but think that part of my 'Will I feel the same?' uneasiness is because right now she's 8. Having been a 14yo girl myself at one point, I'm annoyed at myself for having extra protective impulses. And at the same time don't want to be stupid about it."

 C. B. -- "I wish I knew more of the details so I COULD make a sane decision. Right now, our 14 year old girl walks her dog by herself. He's 55 lbs and goofy, so I don't know that he would "protect her" per se. We were just having a discussion. I want the 16 year old to ride 2 miles to the library on his bike and dad is worried."

J. M. S. -- "I'm curious about the data: are girls more vulnerable than boys? I know it is exceedingly unlikely that someone would snatch my 5yo daughter from the sidewalk, but my perception is that the risk is less teeny-tiny for her than it was for her brothers at 5 (still teeny-tiny, but less so). Teen girls get catcalled and propositioned more than teen boys do, but how does that actually affect them?"

Me -- "I get being worried about the risk of assault (and I would be more concerned if I had recent evidence that gangs of violent kids were roving my near neighborhood without interference by local police or parents). It's a matter of balancing that with the risk of your kid reaching age 18 without ever being allowed to take risks. (But as I said, if there had been a recent assault in my neighborhood I might wait for more info)"

K. M. M. -- "I'm not sure I feel that boys are less vulnerable than girls. You've read The Gift of Fear right? Does [your 14yo] know what to look for in grooming behavior from sexual predators? How to handle men in bathrooms? I would have said that I feel boys would be more likely to be beaten up by roving gangs of teenagers but I see the anecdote above kind of contradicts that."

 K. M. M. --  "But these are all issues that continue on well through college, and will need to be handled at any point. Maybe a self-defense class would be good for teenagers of either gender? I'm glad you're having this discussion, it's giving me a lot to think about. Although we're still not exactly in the urban public transit area."

C. B.  -- "I AM frustrated by not having more details. I understand the 14 year old's desire for privacy and the mom's respecting that. I just wish she would help me understand. During the Neighborhood Night Out, the police officer that visited our street talked to us a little bit about it and that while they don't think it was a "random" thing, they also don't think it was provoked by her behavior in anyway and asked for patience as they get more information. We also live where lots of drug deals go on - Parker's Picnic area was (don't know if it is anymore) a common "exchange location" and the park we live next to seems to be a magnet for kids to go down below near the river to party. Our seemingly nice suburban location seems more worrisome at the moment."

 

K. J. C. -- "I am more afraid of a daughter being sexually harassed or violated on her own in public in our culture. I base that fear on statistics. What I think might be the *feeling* part of it is, is this kind of assault worse for them than the types of assault my boys might be more statistically likely to encounter."

K. M. M. -- "I think that male statistics are grossly under reported because of stigma."

K. J. C.  -- "K.M.M. do you think there are underreported stats of men being catcalled or rubbed up against in the subway or bus, etc? Because I have so many of those stories I can't even number them, and my husband, who is unlikely to lie to me, has zero."

Me -- "I believe that men are propositioned less than women. I also believe they're non-sexually assaulted more often. Boys and girls might be equally at risk but from different kinds of risk."

 J. M. S. -- "See, I just don't think that kind of crap is as common for boys. I think Kelly is right about underreporting, but even so: people feel license to comment on my daughter's appearance in a way that just doesn't happen for my sons once they're older than about 3. I mean, the stuff that happens around me is all well-intended: beautiful girl, cute haircut, nice outfit, blah blah blah. But I think it arises from an unspoken view that girls' physical selves are regarded as community property in a way that boys' are not. Agree or disagree?"

J. T.  -- "A woman is more likely to be groped. A man is more likely to get punched. Neither is fun."

K. J. C.  -- "I agree that neither is fun... I think where 'feeling' comes in, is, is it more damaging to the lives and psyche of our girls to experience *sexual* damage, or is the *physical* damage the same. My gut leans towards yeah, neither is fun, but the sexual part is more damaging. Which I base on no evidence."

J. M. S. -- "And that feels risky for me. Most of the world would never make the leap from "You are a beautiful girl and I want your mother to know that" to "You are a beautiful girl and I'm going to violate you," but how large is that most? NOT LARGE ENOUGH for me at this moment, I'm telling you."

J. M. S.  -- "If I had to pick between physical bullying and sexually tinged bullying, I'd pick physical any day of the week."

K. M. M.  -- "I agree that girls receive more of the catcalls and rubbing up against. But I agree with the others that there are different risks for the genders. How often do women get propositioned in bathrooms? How often do you think your daughter will hear 'Hey, come here, I want to show you something' by a woman in a bathroom stall who has a porn magazine in her hand? I think any discussion of who has it worse or who is more damaged is not productive. We need to take any individual's experience seriously and not diminish it by saying 'Well, so and so has it worse.'"

 Me -- "I agree with that part -- individuals' experiences can't be compared directly in that way. The question for the #sanemomrevolutionis whether sane parenting means treating girls' permissions/curfews/errands/adventures differently from boys.' "

 P. G. B. -- "My kids are still little, but I am starting to let them outside in the back or in front of our house unsupervised for short periods. I get nervous about giving them more freedom, but I hope we allow them what they can handle. Ultimately I think it's about making sure they are mature enough to send them off on their own, and to teach them to be aware of surroundings at all times. Especially to keep their phones/music tucked away. A few years ago I was held up at gunpoint near the shoe zoo, on a Sunday afternoon. But I was yapping away on my iphone, covered in a bright green case, walking to my car, compelety unaware and with my guard down as I was in a "nice" neighborhood. I really do think awareness and being on guard makes a big difference and possible less of a target?"

 B. H.  -- "I think any differences in permissions would be personality based, not sex based. I [male] was allowed a lot more independence on that kind of thing in my teens, both because I was better at not getting lost and because my brother had the kind of vagueness which projects "fun and easy to beat up" to other teens....Our oldest are girls, an I don't have an issue with letting the older ones (12 and 10) walk through town to the library and such. We don't live in an urban core, so I haven't had to deal with that so much."

 K. J. C. -- "The reason I am considering potential consequences of each gender's more likely assault, is because it is an assessment of, do I treat my girls differently, because being raped is more likely to cause a lifetime of mental issues and will affect her sexuality forever, whereas being propositioned in a bathroom or punched in the face might not do the same to my boy? If true (and as I repeatedly say above, I have nothing to back it up with but "feel", which is why I'm musing) then YES I absolutely will treat my girls differently and curtail their freedom to just walk around in public as teens."

Me -- "I do think the question of "which risk do I feel ickier about, physical assault or sexual harassment" is germane to the discussion because one is more likely for boys and one more likely for girls."

 Me -- I wonder if it does not feel just as violating (subjectively speaking) for a young male adolescent to be assaulted, if he doesn't have comparative experience with sexual violation. Many of us mothers have some experience either with sexual violation or sexual intimidation [not to do the yes all women thing again!] and if we haven't been non-sexually, physically assaulted as well, maybe that "doesn't seem so bad" to us.

Me -- Obviously *most* of our decisionmaking hinges on the perceived maturity of the specific kid in question, relative to perceived external circumstances... so all things being equal are the external circumstances also equal? Sexual assault in broad daylight or physical assault is quite rare (even if more rare for one gender than the other). Harassment, not so rare (and let's not forget that some young boys in some places will be more vulnerable to race-based harassment, an experience which I imagine feels quite violating). We really need to teach boys a similar set of awarenesses to fend off sexual harassment, because even if more rare overall than sexual harassment of females, we send boys (not usually girls) into all-male environments and males are more likely to be perpetrators.

K. M. M.  -- "From my perspective: 1) We want to help our adolescents to learn independence as well as how to assess the safety of situations while being aware of the dangers. 2) We need to be aware that both males and females are vulnerable to verbal, physical, and sexual aggressions, but of different types and in different situations. 3) We need to be able to assess what the dangers are for the particular kid and situation we are considering allowing."

K. M. M. -- "I really doubt of us would keep a daughter home while sending a son out late at night to a sketchy area because the "worst" that could happen to him is that he'd be beaten up while she might be raped. We're trying to give them freedom while avoiding obviously dangerous situations, right? I was thinking earlier on the idea that physical assault isn't violating--you often read that people feel violated by having their house robbed when they aren't home. Violation involves a loss of sense of security and feeling that your body or in the case of a house, personal space, was used by someone else and you had no control over it. I think someone absolutely could feel violated by being physically assaulted. If I can still have some ptsd symptoms regarding my c-section when I'm in a medical setting, then yes, someone could possibly have lifelong effects from a physical assault. Those feelings are probably different from violation and trauma from a sexual assault but I'd like my children to avoid feeling any sort of assault if possible."

Me -- "I wonder if my confidence in my kids' ability to navigate the city safely is on the high side because (a) I've lived in cities/urban-style suburbs pretty much all my life, and am not startled anymore by random encounters with people who don't look like me; (b) I perceive busy urban areas as objectively safer, because busier, than relatively isolated parts of the suburbs or rural areas; (c) my experience with harassment as a young woman was largely not in unsupervised situations but in "supervised" situations such as school or my first job as a teenager."

Me -- "Don't you sometimes feel that it sucks that the responsible thing to do is to be the bearer of the Bad News about the world outside? I feel like preparing my kids to avoid being violated by the outside world is itself damaging. And feels wrong because it's me who has to inflict it. Like inoculation."

L. H. B. -- "Well. My daughters are 16, 14, and 11. I haven't had a teenage son yet (he's 8) but I will guess that I do restrict them more than generally teenage boys are restricted in exercising their freedom. I try not to be irrational about it. The reality is, we live in a pretty safe small town. They walk within a mile radius or parents drive them places. Public transit is inconvenient. ...

My daughters each have a black belt in taekwondo, which is something of a comfort when they are walking to school alone on dark winter mornings. I try to encourage freedom by having them take care of errands on their own, but they are driven places, not biking or bussing, it's too far and takes too long. My 16yo is working on her driving license and for some reason, driving doesn't seem risky in the same way taking public transport does. 

I get concerned comments sometimes from well meaning friends when they see my girls walking to school or shopping alone. I get stressed about being perceived as a Bad Mom or a negligent, foolish, and permissive one, more so because I am a widow and feel vulnerable myself (though I have a black belt too, it doesn't protect against determined violence). 

My most irrational rule I think is that they can't wear dresses if walking to school in the morning. It just sets off my Spidey sense...vulnerable female walking alone in the dark! 

In contrast, I walked to school alone at 5 several blocks, at 10 rode my bike all over, at 14 took the city bus to downtown Seattle to buy comics at the market and visit my hairdresser aunt, where I did get the catcalls and creepy guys following me, but nothing really bad happened."

Me -- "Liking the black belt idea in a big way, L. H. B."

H. V. P. -- "Rightly or wrongly, I am feeling better about my children being out in public without adults in pairs or, for my 9 yr old, groups.  It definitely was helpful to me when I was about her age and some middle school aged boys started throwing rocks, that my parents had arranged a walking co-op for me with other elementary school girls."

 M. S.  "As a scout mom, I believe in the buddy system. Groups of 2-3 just make safer errands/trips/events....."

J. F.  -- "My on-going rule is, "Is this kid likely to encounter a problem he or she won't be able to safely handle?" We teach our kids situational awareness and danger-avoidance / deterrence. Lots of open discussion of which dangers are found where, because our neighborhood is dangerous in different ways (see: loose dogs) than the national forest (see: hypothermia) than downtown (see: traffic). The goal is that by the time they're 16 (see: driver's license), they can independently go all the places they have any business being, and they can intelligently decide which times / places are the ones to avoid, and which times / places are the ones to take modest additional measures for personal safety. [Example: You take a stick when you go for a walk in my neighborhood. Universal rule. But downtown we don't need a stick, like you say, lots of safe people milling about, and no dogs.]"

 

---

 

A number of very good points were raised in that discussion.  Let me sum up the ones I think are the most germane, and close with a personal observation.

 

 

It's rare for teenagers to be assaulted by strangers.  It's not particularly rare for teenagers to be harmed by people close to them, and it's not particularly rare for teenagers to be verbally threatened and harassed, sexually or otherwise, even by strangers.

 

Many of us who'd like to be counted as "sane moms" have direct experience with sexually-themed harassment that we have experienced as threatening; fewer, but still a significant number, have direct experience with unwanted sexual touching or outright assault.  We'd like to protect our kids from that, particularly our daughters.  

 

Some of us do "feel" more protective when it comes to the threat of sexually-themed aggression.  We're maybe more protective of girls to the extent that we perceive them, and not boys, to be the target of sexually-themed aggression.  But as K.M.M. pointed out, boys can be such a target.  And as I noted later, boys experience a common risk that girls don't:  we send them regularly, alone, into environments where all the adults and older boys are male, i.e., public men's restrooms and locker rooms.  

 

Individual maturity, problem-solving skill, and environment are all more important than arbitrary age-cut0ffs.     The Sane Mom attitude was, I think, best exemplified by J. F.'s "on-going rule" in the last comment:

 

"Is this kid likely to encounter a problem he or she won't be able to safely handle?"

 

This question depends on the kid, depends on the environment, and depends on how the parents have equipped the kid.  With a cell phone?  With a big stick?  With a healthy appreciation for the importance of keeping eyes and ears open, not distracted by music?  

 

Careful decisions made on an individual case-by-case basis are likely to be perceived, even by the decisionmaker, as gender-based.  This will color our feelings about these individual decisions.  Gender is one of the most obvious differences that can be perceived about individuals, and usually the first observation we make about someone.  Perpetrators will assess it.  Nosy neighbors will assess it.  Our kids' gender is, in a crazy way, part of their environments as well as part of their selves, because it affects how they are going to be treated.    And so the question "is this an individual case-by-case assessment of an individual kid in an individual situation?  or is this a gender-based decision?" is kind of meaningless.

 

This is what we are mainly up against: 

 

There is a tension between "protecting" kids (of either gender) and "equipping them to protect themselves."  No getting around that.  Every time we step in to pre-emptively protect, we are removing an opportunity for them to build self-reliance.    Even the simple decision not to protect is part of equipping them, because they have to start navigating somewhere.  Protecting them as long as possible will mean that they emerge into adulthood without any of the shell that develops from encountering hazards on their own.

 

I was sexually harassed at my first job, groped and subjected to demeaning language, not by another kid but by a 26-year-old man.  Do I wish my parents had prevented me from getting a job so I wouldn't get harassed?  No, I don't.  I'd rather have had the job with the harassment than no job and no harassment.  It might have been nice to have a different job with no harassment, but before it actually happened to me I would not have thought to screen jobs for the possibility.  I was 14.   It was a learning experience.  An extremely uncomfortable one that I still carry with me at times and don't like to think about.   But a learning experience nonetheless.

 

At the same age, I was propositioned and forcibly embraced by a middle-aged man in a hotel elevator when I was on vacation with my grandmother in a foreign country.  Do I wish my grandmother had not allowed me to take the elevator down to the lobby by myself?  No.  My favorite memories of the trip are the parts where I was allowed to step away from the group and test my independence.  If my grandmother had acted to prevent the possibility of encountering weirdos in elevators, she would have prevented a lot of other experiences.

 

The experience of being twice a victim of unwanted sexually-themed aggression at age 14 has for me been far outweighed by the experience of feeling independent and capable -- working for pay, shopping on the street and buying things via a different language in a bustling European capital.  Granted, nothing "worse" happened to me, and something worse might've.  I might feel differently then... 

 

It's serious business to decide for someone else that potential victimhood outweighs potential empowerment.    I'm glad that no one (in that circumstance) decided it for me, even with 25 years to look back on it -- although I reiterate, I was wronged in both circumstances -- not by my parents for letting me get a job, or for my grandmother for letting me explore, but by the assholes I worked with and the asshole I encountered in the elevator.

 

 Assholes are part of the environment out there.  Don't stay inside in case it rains; but bring an umbrella.  Perhaps a very heavy, pointy one.

 

Comments

[Jenny]

The inappropriate things that happened to me as a teenager have impacted how I intend to parent teenagers, no doubt about it. The difference I think is that most of the appalling sexually harassing things that happened to me were in the context of being left alone for long stretches of time, unsupervised, with "friends." Because of these experiences, my children will have a parent available at home throughout their childhood. One of us will be there, no matter what, because bad things happen when parents are not around. Now I don't mean around as in hovering or smothering or overprotecting, but I definitely mean home and not at work.

But this is a different thing than going to a store by yourself or getting a job. Situational awareness is very important and also the ability, for a girl especially, to be able to drop being nice and use whatever heavy, pointy umbrella that might be necessary.

[mandamum]

Hmm...I appreciated reading this. Food for thought.

Here's another question - a situation I run into way too often. If my children are, say, standing in line for something, and another child is in line with an adult, often the adult will push his/her party in front of my children. If I am with them, I can say, "hey, sorry, we're in the line too. The end is back there," and more often than not, that will have an effect. If my kids try to say something similar, they are merely ignored or treated as the bad guys. Do I take this (and have them take it) as just example of being a less "powerful" player in the field, which they may experience in different time in different ways? After all, life isn't always fair. Or is there a better way for them to seek equal treatment, even without an adult nearby willing to elbow out their competition?

[mandamum]

And another question/situation :) Neither of my questions are really about safety in the sane mom revolution, but rather things that bug my kids when I send them off to use their independence.

Recently, I sent my 8yo into the store to pick up our phone-order pizza. She had her cash, and the pizza was in her name. She was a little nervous because it was the first time she'd done this, but game. And then she came out near tears because she had been told she needed her mom with her. So I went in (to find the pizza wasn't even out of the oven - can't even pass on that info to an unaccompanied child?) and passed the time talking to customer service and management. Store management said no age limits, but apparently pizza station manager had some (unclear) limit due to people changing orders/complaining when children were involved? And possibly due to kids using debit cards?!? I need to follow up with them for future. Anyway, now my 8yo is crushed and I'm not sure she'll be up for a repeat. When I do send her on another such errand, I really want to find a guaranteed success for her....

So... how to deal with "we don't serve your kind here" when applied to kids?

[mandamum]

OK, and here are some thoughts on the actual topic:

I connected very much with your comment about sending boys into male-only environments by themselves. I have 5 kids, and only one boy. He is getting to (IS, really) the age where it's not really fair to other people to have him in the women's locker room/bathroom/what have you with me, but it seems incredibly unfair to him to say to him, "you are different from ALL OF US, so you will have to be EXILED to that locker room/bathroom/etc over there BY YOURSELF while we ALL go in here together." It was clearly a big stressor to him this summer at our local pool (to the point he was starting to say he didn't want to swim, to avoid having to go change and shower in the tiny changing room right off the pool deck). When his dad is with us, no problem, but his dad often isn't with us during the weekday. And I don't want to just say, "Look, this is how it is, deal with it." I want to leave him a cushion so he can listen to his comfort level (or lack thereof). (I found The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift to be very thought-provoking.) BUT.... And I'm not ready yet to have the kind of good touch/bad touch conversation I should probably have before sending him into such places by himself without even a brother along.

Maybe it has something to do with my son being younger, and with my lack of trauma in this area, but I also worry more about him in social interactions (and imagined ones, going forward) than my older girls. I know I'll have to work with all of them on setting and protecting boundaries, being safe and common-sensical, etc. Beyond that, well, I backpacked around Europe alone in college, and I want that possibility for (any of) my children as well. To allow others to make "being a girl" into a handicap is another way to allow oneself to be victimized.

Sorry, not very too-the-point today. But thanks for provoking thoughts!