“Such! A! Flirt!”

This comment by reader onamission5 was left on “What’s Your Favorite Princess?”

At kindergarten orientation for one of my kids several years ago, one of the moms there, every time her son would so much as look at or try to speak to any female person young or old, would loudly exclaim for everyone to Look At What A Flirt he was and How Much He Likes Girls. It made the child obviously uncomfortable. It made everyone in the room obviously uncomfortable! He seemed more to me like a shy boy trying to connect with other children and his teacher over this scary-exciting new going to school like a big kid thing, and his mom kept making it impossible for him to even speak to anyone female, especially the other students. I kept thinking, OMG, he’s just trying to make friends leave him alone, and then I was struck with Oh, so this is one of the ways it starts.

I’m sure that mom thought she was being complimentary and cute, but really, all I could see was someone publicly shaming their child for having any interest in girls as people, and loudly declaring that sexual interest was the only type of interest he was allowed to have. At five. years. old.

Then I realized that more than a decade earlier, I, too, had gone off in public regarding my (then very young) eldest child being such! a! flirt! around girls, and I ate a big ole plate of mental crow. Augh. These social scripts. The buy-in, it is so easy, it’s opting out that’s hard.