Writings by me

My son is getting married. No, he hasn’t been taken away by aliens and replaced with a man in his twenties since I last wrote to you. To specify, my 8 year old son, is getting married to his school sweetheart. 

Freddie started having girlfriends last year. Throughout year 2, there was talk of two girls in particular, a treacherous love triangle, which in the end, resulted in intense and emotional summer heartbreak. I tried to reason with my son – just be friends, just focus on having fun, all that will come later – but to no avail; his feelings had been thoroughly hurt. 

Young love does really hurt. I remember my first boyfriend – we barely spoke to each other or went near each other, and it ended after valentines day with people accusing me of only ‘going out with him’ for an Eminem CD (I didn’t but it was a great bonus.)

Having finally got through to him (well at least that’s what I thought), that he should try and enjoy his friends and hobbies and what not, we went to a Christmas party where he met his current girlfriend. She’s a lovely girl, really fun and polite and funny, her parents are nice etc. But they are still only 8. 

So, when I got wind of a wedding ceremony taking place in the school playground, I tried to ignore the irrational feeling of hurt from not being invited, and just indulged him with questions about the arrangements – who would be best man, who was officiating, had he thought about his speech yet? However, then I found out through the grapevine, that her parents may not be entirely happy with the situation. And I reflected on this:

‘Is this just harmless fun or is there something to be bothered about?’

Because we do romanticise our kids’ friendships – especially with friendships between boys and girls. From a very young age, even before they can walk, we might make casual comments like ‘oh I wonder if they might get married one day?’ or ‘oh look, they’re playing hard to get (if they stop playing with each other).’ Not only are we assuming that boys and girls can only ever have romantic relationships together, but we’re also dropping in hints about harmful dating rules from a really early age. Then there’s a definite drop off between boy and girl friendships at some point during primary school. In my experience, Freddie has always been friends with boys and girls but among his friends, there has been much more of a split. From all-girl or all-boy parties to boy gangs and girl gangs, it isn’t a stretch to say that our assumptions that any relationship between boys and girls is probably going to be romantic at some point, might play a part. 

There’s also a chance it’s different for boy and girl parents. As a boy mum, I’m not too worried about it; as long as he doesn’t get hurt, and doesn’t hurt others, it’s just harmless fun. But wrapped up in that? Society’s expectations of my son are different; a boy’s life landscape has always included more options than finding a life partner to settle down with. So perhaps, of course I’m not that bothered; the pressure to make sure my son knows he can do more than just get married and have a family is not there – he already knows this and society confirms it. For girl parents, I can imagine this is something that instead has to be continually reaffirmed. From an early age, I remember feeling like if I had a boyfriend and then got married, my life would be complete. And that’s coming from someone who also wanted to write and work in the city. Finding a significant other was the be all and end all. I hope that this pressure is less now, but it’s still visible; and another thing for girl parents to contend with.

For now, I’m going to try and focus on other things with Freddie and hope that the wedding ceremony gets postponed (as it already has several times) til he’s at least in his teens. Nothing like kicking the parenting can down the road.