Recently my children and their friends got their school pictures back. With that of course has been the flurry of picture exchanges with friends. Perfectly normal and expected.
#2 has come home with several pictures, and many of them have been pictures of boys from her class.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to tease, I made some kind of teasing comment about all the pictures of boys that were coming home and added in something about not letting her dad know.
#1 says that #2 is getting so many pictures of boys because they have crushes on her. To this #2 replies, "Yeah, some of the boys think I am hot. (Cue the record scratch here) But I am not hot."
Damn right she is not hot.
She. Is. Seven.
I kept my cool, and agreed that she is not hot and went on to say that boys can say she is cute, they can say they like her and think she is fun,smart, and things like that, but saying she is hot is NOT OK. Seven is too young to be saying someone is hot.
Good LORD.
Maybe I am over reacting, but this is completely apalling to me. It sure brings home the fact that children are being hypersexualized at a very young age.
We work pretty hard to make sure that our kids are not exposed to age inappropriate media and the the like. It is tough though, when many other parents do not share the same concern.
I really did not think I would have to be concerned about such things when my kid was seven. Seventeen...sure. But sweet Jesus..this REALLY makes me fear the teenage years.
Just keep swimming.....
6 comments:
Good for you! I agree that seven is too young for HOT. I work with 7th and 8th graders and THEY are too young for HOT. I like the choices that you allowed for her. It is so easy for us to forget to compliment our children (and our friends) for things like their intelligence and their attitude, so often we jump straight to the physical, what we can see. Its funny too how we tend to complemet the physical aspects of girls more than boys. I find even with my own two children that I often call my daughter my "beautiful girl" and Call my son my "special guy."
I agree. Our girls only 5 years old and they wear a size 7. Those are hooker clothes! Who designs these clothes for preschool & kindergardeners?
Holy crap! Now that is just plain ridiculous.
No way should seven year olds be referring to each other as "hot"! WTF? They shouldn't even know what "hot" is for pete's sake! My niece is eight and if she ever said anything like that she and I would have one very serious sit-down!
You dun good, Mama!
Thanks so much for the supportive comments ladies. Always good to have validation that I am not crazy or overreacting.
So glad to see comments from new people! Glad you stopped by!
Heck, no, I don't think you're overreacting. But then, my 9-year-old got kissed on the cheek by a boy in front of the whole class a couple of weeks ago and DIDN'T SEEM TO MIND. I completely flipped out. Shouldn't she still think boys are gross?
We've had to have the counselor come in and talk to our first graders, though, b/c they were all "dating" and holding hands and hugging and kissing. We have had to tell that class repeatedly that such behavior is completely inappropriate. Yikes!
I believe Caitlin got the same sort of thing at school, too. Except no pictures were exchanged. We've always heard about "I'm going to marry so-and-so" and that's fine until suddenly it became obvious that they boys were choosing who to marry based on their perceived "hotness".
WTF?!
I don't think Caitlin is missing out by not watching TV, but I do wonder what everyone ELSE is picking up by their TV watching.
Nice job, btw. I'll have to remember that the NEXT time it comes up.
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