Am I being unreasonable.... to tell my boys off for daring a neighbours daughter to pull her pants down?!

[Alltheseboys]

I let my twins (9) go out to play with our neighbours. They were playing 'dare21' and they and another boy dared this girl to pull her pants & trousers down! I went mad & they are grounded my the other boys mum just laughed & said "boys will be boys". I explained to them that they need to have respect for other people & would not appreciate the consequences if her older brother, his friends or her mum came round to see them! My neighbour thinks I'm over exaggerating & found it funny & the girls mum leaves her out on the street all hours anyway. I have 4 boys and as the only woman in the house I feel I need to insist they treat girls with respect. What do you think?

YADNBU daring is a form of peer pressure and they need to know where to draw the line, the only way they will know is if you come down like tonne of bricks when they cross it.

YANBU and surprised the other mum just laughed

YANBU.

YADNBU. If it was a boy they'd dared to do it they'd still be in trouble in my books. Just because other people don't give a shit about their kids doesn't mean you're wrong for doing so. Look at your kids in 10 years and then look at theirs. You'll soon see who was right.

Shame on the other mother.

I agree with you completely. Ok you know it was just a bit of a game but you are right to make them stop and think about checking their behaviour and about respecting other people.
Your neighbour's response of "Boys Will Be Boys" is a red rag to a bull to me as I am the mum of two DD's and I hear this used all too frequently to excuse bad behaviour in boys. Of course boys behave badly sometimes and so do girls but boys have no special right to do so. With you on this one!

How old was the girl ?

yanbu

I'd have gone nuts too

Thanks guys.
What I mean is I don't think she would've told her mum. But I wanted them to think about if she had. Especially if that had happened when they were older. I want them to rmbr how much trouble they got in this time.
I'm glad you don't think I'm being unreasonable. Just her reaction made me feel like I was over exaggerating.

Yanbu. You did absolutely the right thing

another mum of 4 boys here and NO YANBU, my boys would have been brought in and told in no uncertain terms that it was NOT an ok thing to do and they would also have been punished appropriately ie not allowed out to play again that day and no playing out without supervision until they could be trusted not to do it again.

Gumby she's 8. I'm glad she had the sense to say no.

4madboys that's exactly what I did. Last I heard they were in their room moaning at each other. I rang their dad at work & he read them the riot act as well. I thought it warranted more than a "wait until your dad gets home" talk.

i totally agree! its not acceptable behaviour at all. its difficult because they are still children but they ARE getting to the age where puberty kicks in and differences start to be more noticeable, but asking any child boy or girl to pull down their underwear is NOT ok imo. i get that when they are little this kind of things is funny as is talking about poo and farts etc, but they need to learn that its not acceptable as they get older and that certain behaviour is not appropriate, some things are private etc.

You did the right thing.

yanbu. I'd have given out a severe bollocking for that.

YANBU, and good for you.

I wouldn't say "shame on the other mother." As you had punished them, it would have been rude of her to say "I should think so too, that was awful!" What she said was just a polite way of saying that she is not angry. And she probably isn't angry because she knows they are being punished - if you had shrugged and said "boys will be boys" she'd probably be raging.

Oh sorry I have just seen it was the other boy's mum who said that.

Bugger. Ignore ignore

Isn't this an abuse flag?

At least they didn't force the girl physically, that would have been even more awful.

I think you did the right thing apart from the threat of her brother/dad etc - to me that sounds too much like she is the property of her male relatives/they have more say than she does about her own body. Just the fact that it could have made her uncomfortable or embarrassed is enough reason not to do this.

Well done OP, good response, and from your OH as well. If it had happened in school, it would have been a major issue and taken much further.
Yes, it was a stupid game, and the girl was behaving very foolishly too. Children egg each other on to do increasingly rude things, it's a common problem. Last time I had something like that, it was boys farting in each other's faces with no females involved. They were 8.
They should all have been talked to by their parents. But you can't do everything, you dealt with your own children. It won't be the last time.

good response.

i would give my 9 year old a real telling off if he did this!

They are still trying to find boundaries at this age, and can be prone to silly behaviour, and still need correcting.....I find. I was called into school last week as DS (9) had been chasing kids to burp in their face...lovely. Not.

It is hard work being a parent, isn't it?

You did the right thing in disciplining your boys firmly about this OP.

That "boys will be boys" comment would have made me want to scream. It's that kind of attitude that leaves us with too many at best disrespectful and at worst abusive men when it comes to the way they treat women. It's also why the accounts and feelings of girls/women who feel sexually compromised in some way by boys/men are often not taken seriously. Because "boys will be boys". And "men will be men", I suppose.
It's a despicable attitude and I'm really pleased you took the line you did OP and that you have received so much support for doing so on here. Good for you.

I wonder if she dared them first?
Or why she felt the need to follow through on the dare in order to be part of the gang and not wimp out? Why does she feel like that at 8, rather than remembering that bottoms and bits are private? I also wonder if she plays with girls as well, different friendship dynamics sometimes help a child gain a sense of perspective and what is appropriate.

Abuse flag in what way YouCanDoIt? Seems a bit extreme.

YANBU OP, totally not acceptable behaviour. They probably are moaning in their room because they just thought it was a bit of a joke. In time they will understand though.

How did you find out btw?

She didn't follow through Dustinthewind.