Do you remember your first crush? How old were you? Did you tell him/her? Did they like you back? Did you tell your mom/dad? What did they say? What age did you start dating? When/where was your first kiss? I can’t remember the answer to half of these questions, but I knew as a parent the day would come when these questions would be asked.
Having a pre-teen daughter, I knew the issue was going to arise soon about boys and crushes, etc. I wasn’t really stressing about the issue of boys, since my daughter and I have a pretty open relationship. She is good about talking to me about things and we’ve had the boys talk plenty of times.
If you are wondering my daughter is 12, will be 13 in June. She’s an A student, hardworking, smart, helpful, and terribly shy. She’s respectful, loves to read, and draw.
One of her close friends is a guy. They have been friends for almost two years. They are in the same after school activities and honor programs. For the most part, I think he is a nice, respectable, young man. Lately, I began to notice her increased conversations about said friend, so of course we talked about it and she revealed that she thinks she likes him and he likes her.
In my mind, I want to scream, shout, kick, and hit stuff, and lock her in a room, so I don’t deal with this. IN MY MIND. However, I know that this is a very critical age and a very serious subject. How I response to this situation, will either help or harm my child. So, I let her talk. I let her say what she feel she needs to say, get her feelings out in the opening and we discuss them. She is relieved that I am not screaming or hollering she is too young for a boyfriend; however, I explained to her that it is okay to have friends of the opposite sex. Having a crush at her age is normal, but as far as dating it will be none of that. She asked permission for them to text each other and after some hesitation, my husband and I both agreed to allow her to text but with many rules.
I know a lot of you are probably thinking, texting a boy at twelve, she’s too young or not my child. Well to each its own. Since we don’t allow her to have any form of social media, we decided to allow her to text. We have to trust that our daughter is the smart, responsible, young lady, we raised her to be. I was young once and telling a child they can’t do something is a surefire way to make them do it and nine times out of ten they will do it behind your back.
Anyway, we agreed that they could text but my husband and myself has spoken with the young man in question and we are in the process of meeting his parents, not because we are trying to force a relationship or anything like that, but because we want to know what kind of family this child is raised in, what is his upbringing like, what are his parents like, and I hate to say this but in this day and age it must be asked, WHAT ARE HIS PARENTS THOUGHTS ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE?
Oh yea, I forgot to mention the young man is Asian (Chinese). My daughter is black. I teach my children to treat everyone the same. Of course, it caught me by surprise. This whole situation has, but I think it has also opened my eyes a little wider to a lot of things. My daughter has a mixture of friends. Her best friends are a black girl and a white girl. Since the possibility of her and her Chinese friend possibly liking each other, it has placed a light on what her white friend thinks about interracial couples (not that they are a couple, no dating, just friends).
My daughter tends to see the good in people as you should and by the white girl being her best friend, she had no reason to question that the girl would do anything to violate their friendship or trust. Well, I’m not going to go into details but long story short, the young girl has an issue with my daughter talking to the boy. This is not something that my daughter told me, this is something that I concluded after playing detective and going through text messages (one of the rules my husband and I has set). Going through the messages, I noticed someone else was texting the boy from my daughter’s phone (her name was on there and stating how she needed to talk to him/tell him something blah blah blah) When I asked my daughter about it, she stated how she didn’t think anything about it because it was her friend that asked to use her phone, etc. etc. Well, we had to have a talk about the different types of friends and what real friends will and won’t do. To prevent a lot of drama, I simply told my daughter to pay more attention to how her friend acts towards her and treats her and I told her to limit her conversations with the guy, because if he is willing to talk to you and your friend then that is someone you don’t want to be friends with anymore. I didn’t tell her to stop being friends with either person, I simply told her to be more vigilant as to how they act around her and how they treat her and if they aren’t treating her right, then she knows what she has to do.
I tried my hardest not to make the situation a racist thing because maybe that’s not the case. I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers and that what scares me. I don’t want to teach my child something that may eventually hurt her in the long run and I want her to be able to make her own decisions as to who she think is her friend and who is not and why. So, I guess you can say I’m kinda letting her feel the situation out alone but with some guidance.
I don’t think any parent is ever ready for the dating age. I know I’m not. My life has changed in the course of a week. Just last Sunday, my daughter was still enjoying children’s church, now she is ready to sit in grown people church. I know this is only the beginning, and I’m not ready for the woes of dating and all that comes with it but I will do everything in my power to steer my child down the right road even though I’m freaking out on the inside!
The post Sisterly Yours, Pattie: First Crush appeared first on Urban Image Magazine.
