On My Son’s Camp Friendship with a Girl
I will continue to push back, one stereotype at a time.
I picked my 8-year-old son up from summer camp the other day, and in his usual articulate way he said “Mommy, I have something important to discuss with you about something that is making me upset.”
I told him to go ahead.
He sighed and continued. “My best friend at camp is Michelle. But some of the other kids are saying she’s my girlfriend.”
I asked him if the other kids were saying this in a teasing way, already knowing the answer. Yes. At that age, those words are meant to be an insult.
I said “You know, I wish kids wouldn’t say those things to you, but I know it happens. You can say back to them ‘She’s my friend that’s a girl, but she’s not my girlfriend.’ Are you ok with that?”
He said that he was, but I know that forming a response in the moment, when being teased, is easier said than done. “I really like Michelle,” he said, almost sadly, “We have the same interests.”
I told him that my best friend in kindergarten was a boy named Jesse. He was painfully shy and many of the other kids didn’t want to play with him. I was shy too, and our friendship formed over the fact that our last names both started with the letter “B” so we…
