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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To believe 12 is too young to be obsessed with finding a boyfriend

75 replies

ItsDecisionTime · 30/07/2013 11:33

Many of my DDs friends are absolutely obsessed with finding a boyfriend and it's taking over their lives. Many of them haven't even entered puberty but believe something's wrong with them if they aren't 'in a relationship'. One friend even wrote on FB that she met a boy on holiday, he kissed her on the lips, held her hand and they lay gazing at the stars. She is only 11. I can remember my first boyfriend at 15 and I only went out with him because all my friends were doing it. Have times changed so much that I'm to be on my guard against boys this early in my child's life?

OP posts:

cory · 30/07/2013 12:49

JamieandtheMagicTorch Tue 30-Jul-13 12:42:36

"My main worry is that earlier adolescent yearnings might get warped into "must give boys blowjobs to make them like me" reality in some cases. Because I hear that's what is happening in certain small cliques at DSs school But that might be my moral panic kicking in..."

There have always been insecure teens behaving in ways that are likely to damage them. But they are usually rather unhappy children from the start; it isn't terribly contagious imho. There are plenty of things you can do as a parent to build up your child's self esteem without going into full moral panic mode.

Lavidaenrosa · 30/07/2013 13:16

I had a boyfriend when I was 12. We just came home together (we lived in the same road) and he would carry my backpack. We never kissed. We held hands once I think. The next boyfriend I had was when I was 17 and at uni (not UK). We only kissed and hugged.

It might be different now.

Choccyhobnob · 30/07/2013 13:35

Totally normal, my diary from the age of 11-14 (I still read it for a laugh) shows I was totally obsessed with boys and no adult could possibly understand the terrible pain that this love was unrequited .

I finally got at boyfriend at our yr 8 class Christmas party the weekend before we broke up for the holidays. This consisted of half an hour of snogging with tongues, no contact for the whole of the Christmas holidays, then sitting next to each other for a week in January and spending a couple of lunch breaks holding hands then either my friend or his friend told the other one's friend "so and so doesn't want to go out with so and so anymore - go and tell them" lol

Totally innocent. Didn't think about anything more serious than snogging til I was about 15. I waited until I was 16, so thinking about boys non stop at the age of 12 didn't automatically mean thinking about doing anything serious....

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 30/07/2013 13:44

cory

I'm sure you are right

raisah · 30/07/2013 13:56

Thr differencr is that things become physical very quickly at a very young age than previously. So our generation may have been content with hand holding & going to the cinema. The generation today are having fully fledged physical relationships earlier than us so the op is right to be wary. When I had my ds a few e years ago I shared the NICU unit with 4 under 16 year olds. The youngest was 13 & she gave birth at 24 weeks, so even though she was fertile her body was too unstable to sustain a f/t pregnancy. It is certainly a lot more different & sexualised than it was when I was a teenager in the 90's.

specialsubject · 30/07/2013 14:29

life lessons for your daughter:

the age limit on facebook is there for a reason
other girls lie
to respect herself
not to be a sheep - to do what SHE wants (subject to staying safe) and to recognise peer pressure as being for fools.

easier said than done at 12 - but it's a start.

KellyElly · 30/07/2013 16:01

raisah I was a teenager in the 90's and it was still pretty sexualised then. Most of my friends were not virgins by the time the were 16 (i.e. legal) and there was a fair bit more than hand holding going on at 12/13/14. I'm not saying everyone was having rampant orgies but that is an age of sexual awakening (by this I don't mean having sex at 12/13) and I think it's natural and normal. I think every generation thinks the current generation is worse but I don't necessarily think it's true.

MrsRachelLynde · 30/07/2013 16:37

I had a huge crush on a bit in my class when I was 11. He was all I thought about, I think he liked me too but then I left that school and I never saw him again (sigh).

I do remember my mum telling me I was too young for boys and me being all "no I'm not, I'm ELEVEN, that's nearly twelve which is practically grown up and anyway Karen's sister had a baby when she was fourteen and that's OLD!"

MrsRachelLynde · 30/07/2013 16:38

Not a bit. A boy!

chocoluvva · 30/07/2013 17:06

I sympathise with your feeling of horror ItsDecisionTime.

Hope you're reassured by most of the other posts though.

FWIW the most recent research found the age at which young people become sexually active has gone up.

IME there's often a flurry of activity in Y7 and Y8 when there's a lot of 'mixing and matching'. Often there will then be a 'dry spell' of several years! My DD, aged 16 is still good friends with the four boys she 'went out with when she was 13

EBearhug · 30/07/2013 22:25

Nearly everyone had boyfriends when we were that age at school.

Except me. Didn't even get a kiss till I was 16, and not an actual boyfriend till I was 21. (Yes, that is the chorus of violins you can hear in the background.)

It was, as I remember, quite some effort keeping up with who was going out with whom, because it swapped about all the time. I do remember R&J got told off for French kissing on the school field. I thought they were ever so grown up.

We were also busy passing round a copy of Judy Blume's Forever in the playground, age 11 or 12, until the headmaster confiscated it.

Things calmed down a bit when we got to 13, which was probably quite a bit to do with moving to single sex secondary schools. But by 15-16, it was all going on again.

Some of those boys from school are now FB friends, 30 years on. I'm feeling very old now.

soontobeburns · 30/07/2013 22:44

I had my first "boyfriend" by 10 with some kissing and a little touching.
At 12 I was dry humping and craving sex.

Wasnt till 16 when I kissed again abd lost my virginity in a ONS.

When I was 17 I got a boyfriend and have been in 2 serious relationships sense the last of which is my now fiance at 23.

Im not a mum and have a good stable life. While it is scary to think of (I volunteer at guides and they are so young and seem so innocent) you have to just remember yourself and that it does happen and wont always lead to mistakes.

Im a total hypocrite though lol. I look at teens and they seem way too young for any of that.

valiumredhead · 30/07/2013 22:45

Normal.

Poodletip · 30/07/2013 23:00

My Y1 ds has a "girlfriend" (since the start of reception in fact) and it has never crossed my mind that it is anything other than purely innocent! What on earth would they get up to at that age. Well last time she was here they played marble run and with bubbles, sand and trampoline in the garden. Shocking hey!

I remember there being a lot of talk of boyfriends and girlfriends when I was 12 (I'm nearly 40 now). I even "went out with" someone for a bit but we never actually spoke to each other!

chocoluvva · 31/07/2013 09:51

"lay gazing at the stars" - might or not be true!

Trills · 31/07/2013 09:57

YABU to think that 12 is "too young", because that suggests that it is the age that is the problem. Nobody should be "obsessed with finding a boyfriend".

dirtyface · 31/07/2013 09:59

i don't think its a new thing

i am 33 and remember being 11 / 12 and DESPERATE for a boyfriend as were all my friends.

it was nothing sexual though, it was more about having one just so i could say i had one iyswim. and tbh none of the boys our age were really interested in girls yet anyway, our attentions were pretty annoying to them :o

MrsHoarder · 31/07/2013 10:14

Remember that whilst we think of "they lay gazing at the stars" in a film etc as a bit of a post-sex metaphor, a 12 yo probably misses this subtlety. Its a bit of rated 12 film romance.

And yes, balance in her life is good, but that is the age of crazy boy-hormones starting.

cory · 31/07/2013 10:47

Trills, how do you stop 12yos from obsessing over every aspect of their lives? Isn't that just what they do?

chocoluvva · 31/07/2013 10:54

"gazing" is a bit of cliché isn't it?! What's wrong with 'looked at' or 'watched'?!

It's a shame when DCs spend a lot of time thinking about BFs/GFs instead of doing more constructive/wholesome things. I'm sure they will be learning useful things about themselves/'relationships'/socialising though.

Quite often they 'settle down' in Y9/10 and focus on their school work.

Sometimes children who've had a very strict upbringing go wild when they leave home for uni. Try to boost your DD's confidence so she will have the best chance of making good choices for herself and be less subject to peer pressure.

snuffaluffagus · 31/07/2013 10:55

I'm 32, I "married" my first "boyfriend" when I was 5 in the playground. I can assure you it was all entirely innocent! He moved to Australia when we were 6... HEARTBREAK. So I married someone else. Hussy.

When I was 12 I can remember being obsessed with boys, we were always talking about who we fancied, and cringingly I remember sending a valentine card to a boy I fancied in year 8 (he's still a mate now and teases me about it occasionally!).. I wasn't COOL.

I didn't actually kiss a boy until I was 15 and didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17 so I don't think it's anything to worry about in itself. It's normal and not a new thing.

Still18atheart · 31/07/2013 11:07

errrrm my school for the kids aged between 10 - 13 did a valentines day thing which was for charity but involved sending cards to friends on. each card had a ribbon tied to it. White for just friends, Pink for i like you, red for love. I think most people just sent them to friends, but still.

I think people started thinking about gfs/ bfs at about 12. But nothing really happned until 13yo and that was just the pretty popular kids.

Remember durnig an English debate about same sex school in about yr 9 and the topic of those who had bfs and gfs came up. and I was the only person who admitted that they hadn't been in a relationship. Queue massive embaressment for me

NoComet · 31/07/2013 11:26

YANBU, far too young to be obsessed. Mildly interested, perhaps. Obsessed no!

DD2(12) has had a couple of 'BF' that seem to have lasted a day each.

She is very keen on eyeing up hunky men, watching the start of rugby matches and likes a certain knight in Merlin.

DD1(15) has never had a BF, she is happy to have boys as friends and often shares more interests with them than the girls.

One day in 6th form or university I'm sure one of these friendships will become something more, but it won't happen simply because she feels she must have a BF to fit in.

By 14/15 I'm sure DD2 will have to have one.

shotofexpresso · 31/07/2013 11:44

v, normal in my school its all most girls cared about.

Justforlaughs · 31/07/2013 11:53

I am SO lucky that none of my older DCs take after their mother in this way. None of them are particularly bothered about the opposite sex, although the 2 boys have lots of female friends. Now, back in MY day, I was 12 and was "going out with" an 18 yo, who did actually know that I exist but we only ever held hands and had a kiss. I would be frantic (and frankly, disbelieving) if either my 18 yo son or 12 yo daughter tried to convince me that this was the case today!

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