To find this mother's advice to her 10 year old DD faintly disturbing?

[randocalrissian]

My DD is in year 6 and, as is normal, there are the first stirrings of pre-teen romance among one or two kids in her year. All pretty innocent and harmless and we've chatted about it.

She told me yesterday one girl in her class is flirting a bit with a boy - think they're not even at the holding hands stage but its the talk of the town as you can imagine.

DD said the girl had said her mum took the girl aside and gave her some "tips" about how to flirt with this boy.

The one which stuck in my mind was "always be pleasant and smiley around him and laugh at his jokes. Don't say too much and don't hang out too much with the other boys".

I'm not sure whether to be more disturbed that this mum is basically preparing her pre-pubescent daughter for a relationship in such an overt way at this age or the advice that she should turn herself into such a wet discloth.

Is it just me or is this weird and a bit unhealthy?

Sadly I see lots of women who when around men do not have options or join in the conversation ..
I only the other hand love expressing myself much to the disgust of the men present

This little girl we are talking about,can someone go and give her mother a lesson on childhood. It's so short, this little one should be running around a park or playing with toys, not worrying about bloody how to act around boys. It's so sad.

If I knew her I would find her a child friendly book on strong historical women or along those lines.

Exactly!

That kind of bullshit advice has been pedalled for decades. Use it as an opportunity to speak to your DD about how utterly ridiculous it is.

Pfft. I taught my daughter to wear a Victorian dress and lay quietly on a chaise lounge in case any beau called unexpectedly for tea. Then she must look at him coyly over her fan whilst giving a tinkly laugh at his jokes.
That's the way forward in this flirting malarkey.

That's terrible.

There's loads of parents whose cultural education revolves around Love Island and BB. They are now bringing up the next generation on a similar cultural diet. They think nothing of passing on their habits to their kids. So each generation is getting dumber and think women are there only to attract men and disfigured their faces with plastic.