Friendships at primary school

[Grellbunt]

Frustrated by kids in my son's class (and a few adults tbh) who cannot seem to countenance a normal child friendship between a boy and a girl, leaping to "oooh, you fancy her" or "X has got a GIRLFRIEND"... in a jeering/giggley way. I just can't be doing with it and have reassured my son that it is perfectly possible to be friends with the opposite sex. This started probably around age 7. They're now 10 and the latest nonsense is for one girl to announce that she is a lesbian, having previously "fancied" one of the boys for months.

I know it isn't AIBU, but AIBU to silently scream "FFS, you haven't even started puberty yet, why would you even think about sexual attraction let alone which sexuality you might eventually end up as??!!" It feels to me that by framing everything in these terms - the language of romantic/ sexual relationships rather than just bog standard paldom, you are inevitably "othering" the opposite sex and messing with the heads of children?

I remember that from primary. It was a bit grim.

Why is a girl declaring herself a lesbian at 10 nonsense? I knew I was straight at ten, why would gay kids not know they’re gay or even bisexual? 🙄

I should clarify - I wrote "nonsense" because of the context in which it was said which certainly didn't suggest it was a serious discussion. But yes I confess I honestly cannot imagine a child of ten knowing such a thing for sure. Is that a thing? Perhaps I have only come across late developers.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, if you've grown up in an environment where everyone around you tells you the only way to like the opposite sex is in terms of romantic/sexual terms, you might mistake normal feelings of friendship for such feelings. The suggestion was that now she no longer was friends with ie fancying the boy, this meant she must automatically a lesbian. It just struck me as a little far fetched.

People with babies the same age as Ds always say, "Oh maybe she'll be his girlfriend."
I like to deadpan and go. Well he might. Or he might have a boyfriend instead.

I think this is one of the biggest barriers to equality. If most men don't have any friends that are girls how warped is their view of girls going to be? If they've already effectively been 'othered' in primary school how easy is it for them to just consider women holes to fill? And if you don't hang out with girls much I can predict incompatible people staying together because they just think that's what the opposite sex are like and don't realise that there might be someone else out there for them that's better suited to them.

Don't get me wrong, no issue with lesbians, far from it. Just seems awfully early for labels - and I can't help wondering if it's partly the result of the prevailing culture of not letting boys and girls just be friends throughout childhood and imposing these adult norms.

You're right OP. There have always been children having boyfriends / girlfriends at primary level. But it should remain a child centred issue not with frankly creepy adults inserting themselves and their beliefs into childhood friendships.
Of course 10 year olds shouldn't be obsessing about sexual relationships - lesbian, gay or straight. They're children fgs and should be able to explore friendships safely and without adult behaviours being centred. They need safe boundaries and confident adults who say no - this behaviour's for adults, not 10 year olds.

This is what I'm trying to get at. I've been shocked at the teasing throughout primary on this and I think it's definitely a barrier to equality.

Teachers are guilty too - in my other boy's nursery they bring them out to us in "boys" and "girls " groups. There are pink and blue folders for their paperwork sitting on the tables inside the nursery. What else are they doing to "other" the opposite sex? Loads, probably. It's a small town with lovely folk, and lovely teachers, but I do feel a bit isolated on this! Feels worse than in my schooldays, tbh.

And this is why parents need to be alert for primary schools naively introducing the groups with adults super keen to share their beliefs about sex and identity with young children.

Obviously I'm happy that the word is being used positively, and not as an insult! Progress at least there. They just need to know that there isn't any pressure to actually engage in anything at this stage, even if they know about it. There are some children who already seem very keen to be "all grown up".

I think this has always been part of children's socialising and growing up - experimenting with identities, trying things out, even words, feelings, it's a kind of play, really. Marriage, love, romance, relationships, all are quite fascinating to children, as clearly an important part of the world but not yet something they can actually understand.

YANBU, but equally I think it's standard for kids to explore these things - mostly in an abstract, playful way.

Totally agree. My DS has quite a few female friends and has had all through primary school. I always found it odd when other parents asked (usually on a sort of conspiratorial way) whether the female friend was his girlfriend. When he was 10, the head teacher noticed that he spent quite a lot of time with one girl (his best mate at the time) and asked me if it was his 'special friend' in a sort of nudge/nudge/wink/wink way.

What sort of message does this send to children about the relationships they can have with members of the opposite sex?

I will say that although this has been common for a while, I don't think it's been nearly so much so.

There's been a real push to treat kids as if they are much older in many ways, television watching, activities, dating, clothing. (Weirdly at the same time they are infantilised in terms of real responsibility and autonomy.)

There is a real lack of appreciation for normal cognitive stages of child development, as well, including about sex and sexuality.

@ArabellaScott

I think this has always been part of children's socialising and growing up - experimenting with identities, trying things out, even words, feelings, it's a kind of play, really. Marriage, love, romance, relationships, all are quite fascinating to children, as clearly an important part of the world but not yet something they can actually understand.

YANBU, but equally I think it's standard for kids to explore these things - mostly in an abstract, playful way.

I agree. My small child has often talked about getting married to their best friend(s) because dc wants to live with them and share their toys! Don't think dc understands yet about romantic love at all but I'm sure he has or will be exposed to the notion when he's a bit older at school.

I've noticed there's been a subtle change from boys playing with a mixed group of kids to mainly playing with a few other boys. Not sure how common that is.

DS2 is 10 and since nursery he has played with anyone from his class but his closest friends were girls. From around age 8 most of the boys in the class stopped playing with the girls preferring football, or more recently, standing around talking about their consoles/games, etc. DS is not part of that and as we approach year 6 he is very aware of how different he appears. Sadly, I know with some of the boys, their attitude to not spending time with the girls comes from home - I have heard comments from their dads, it's a rural very mysoginistic area. It's really sad to see DS's confidence drop and him start to question who he spends time with, although the person he spends most time with is a girl.

This thread has reminded me of a chat with a mum of a girl in my son's year when he was in year 6 and she was proudly telling me that her daughter had had the same boyfriend since she was in reception unlike the other girls who changed boyfriends all the time. She then told me she pitied my son because he didn't have a girlfriend. It was so creepy.

@SmokedDuck

I will say that although this has been common for a while, I don't think it's been nearly so much so.

There's been a real push to treat kids as if they are much older in many ways, television watching, activities, dating, clothing. (Weirdly at the same time they are infantilised in terms of real responsibility and autonomy.)

There is a real lack of appreciation for normal cognitive stages of child development, as well, including about sex and sexuality.

I agree.

@AugustRose

DS2 is 10 and since nursery he has played with anyone from his class but his closest friends were girls. From around age 8 most of the boys in the class stopped playing with the girls preferring football, or more recently, standing around talking about their consoles/games, etc. DS is not part of that and as we approach year 6 he is very aware of how different he appears. Sadly, I know with some of the boys, their attitude to not spending time with the girls comes from home - I have heard comments from their dads, it's a rural very mysoginistic area. It's really sad to see DS's confidence drop and him start to question who he spends time with, although the person he spends most time with is a girl.

I'm sorry to hear this. I understand.

People say this about my two year old, if he mentions a girl at nursery. 'Oh, is she your girlfriend?' Grim.

They get a hard stare and 'No, he's two.'

I hate this. I remember when I was little more than a toddler and wanted to invite a little boy to my birthday party, so I had hear all these comments about him being my 'boyfriend'. All I remember is that it made me feel really uncomfortable and made me think I shouldn't be friends with him any more to avoid these comments, like it was shameful. I think sometimes people just think it's cute, but for others I think there might be something else going on. I wonder if that's partly what's behind it, shaming females from an early age so that they don't get a 'reputation' and aren't too masculine in their interests, and for little boys that they shouldn't be too feminine - a homophobic undercurrent, perhaps? This continues throughout later years as well, if you are a woman with male friends - people ask questions about the nature of your friendship as though there must be something going on. Sadly, I have found over the years that men do in fact tend to want more than friendship whereas a woman can be perfectly content being friends with a man, and I wonder to what extent these kind of comments about 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends' contribute to not being able to see women as friends.

It is absolutely about enforcing gender conformity, I think... deliberately or subconsciously. I wonder if that's why gender ideology has made such headway. So few people seem to think the way I do (in part due to being allowed a lot of freedom as a child in this respect - my parents didn't really do gender stereotypes and I'd have been even more isolated at secondary school without my male friends. I used to think it was so obvious that we as a society should and could just remove the stereotypes to eradicate the need for anyone to ever need to "trans" ... but having observed all this I sometimes wonder.

Apologies for circling back to the trans issue. I'm sick of it too but it's all interlinked so its hard to avoid it.

My 5 year old has just informed me that "James didn't play with me at lunch time because he's fallen in love with Olivia so he had to play with her." (Not their real names).

That's not 5 year old language. There's an adult involved somewhere approving/cheering this stuff. I don't understand it. They're five!

Thank goodness some people understand!