September 06, 2003
The Ladies' Man
A comment on another post got me thinking about men and how they behave. Being the mom of a boy, I often wonder how I can prevent him from growing up to be the kind of guy who races his motorcycle down the freeway or driving a ridiculous lifted truck.
Have a penis? Do stupid shit. It's the law.
Anton took away all illusions I had about it being solely size related. I thought there was hope. Obviously, there's none.
Right after I saw that comment, I was talking to Greg about what he and Little Dude had done after school while I was at work. Greg told me about their adventures and I began to laugh. His observations about the Little Dude were similar to an experience I'd had with him the weekend before. My son has already begun his journey down that slippery slope to acting the fool to impress the ladies.
Little Dude and I went out for a bit of a walk. He wanted to take his pedal car and I helped him take it down the steps on the walk to the path near the pool. I was going to let him ride it down the steps (I'm willing to allow supervised disaster at times) but that proved impossible due to the pitch of the stairs and the style of the pedal car.
We get to the bottom of the stairs and he jumps on. He pedals like a bat out of hell and whips his way around the path a number of times.
"It's just like a little racetrack, Mom!"
"I guess it is..." I managed to say as he raced off again.
After another 15 laps, he came to a screeching halt, throwing the handbreak into the mix, and skidded a good twenty feet. He turned to look behind him and his huge grin turned into a frown.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"No skid marks. All that work and NO SKID MARKS! That's crazy!" he yelled to me.
He kept looking over his shoulder toward the pool as he skidded about. It took me a few moments to figure out what was going on. There were two teenage girls in bikinis at the pool. My son was showing off for them!
Forget impressing mom or riding around for fun. Forget any experiment regarding the skidmark properties of various tires. This was about impressing girls.
He's not quite seven.
I think I'm in big trouble as he gets older.
Greg told me that the Little Dude was doing pretty much the same thing the other day. He'd haul his car up close to the fence surrounding the jacuzzi and pull some silly stunt....repeatedly. As Greg got closer, he could hear girlish giggles coming from the spa area. Putting two and two together, he came to the conclusion that my son wasn't performing the stunts for the sake of a quick thrill, he was hoping to impress the teeny boppers hanging out nearby.
I guess boys really are hardwired to do things to impress the ladies. They start out young and crazy and some carry that over into adulthood. I think some forget, somewhere along the way, that the feats of daring-do are supposed to be memorable for their awesomeness and not their sheer stupidity. I can only hope that my son will outgrow the silliness of some of the behaviors and find more cerebral methods of impressing women. Otherwise I may have to gift him extra insurance policies throughout his lifetime.
Posted by DaGoddess at September 6, 2003 04:45 PMIt ain't all about impressing wimmen. Boys just like to do stupid shit.
Posted by: Acidman at September 6, 2003 07:33 PMIn most guys, the seperation between awesomeness and stupidity doesn't exist. And, for some reason a lot of young women aren't impressed with cerebral gymnastics until AFTER they do stupid stuff. Gotta get their attention first I guess. To be fair though, guys will do stupid stuff even if there are no women around, just to impress the other guys. Dare ya! DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!!! You know how it goes.
Better contact your insurance provider.
It must be hardwired because it can't be the hormones at 7. But wait until he's 17 -hehe.
Posted by: suzi at September 6, 2003 11:41 PMHahaha. I have two (now adults) sons and I can attest to everything you said. But what fun as they grow, I loved seeing things from the other side. AND, when they started breaking "wimmen's" hearts, boy did I get mad at them. But, on the other hand, I could also let them know when they were being manipulated (often!!). My kids are 7 years apart and when oldest was about 16 he used to "offer" to take his little brother with him when he went off with his friends sometimes. I used to picture him with a halo cause I thought it such a nice, brotherly thing to do. Only recently he told me it had nothing to do with brotherly love, that a little kid those days was as good as a "chick magnet"!! Who knew......
Posted by: Cyn at September 7, 2003 06:42 AMSure, guys lose their minds in the presence of women, but put a boy on a deserted island with a bike and he'd be trying to ramp the volcanoes or something. Just something about the rush of doing something insane impossible.
Posted by: Chris at September 7, 2003 09:13 AMI have to say that it is true that just by the fact that a boy has a penis they will do alot of strange things at any age. For example, my oldest son was not even 3 yrs. old yet and we were at the park one day with our play group. I was in the shade nursing my youngest son and watching the children play. The next thing that I saw just floored me, my son went over to where there were a group of little girls. He still didn't talk at this time so I just thought that he was gonna play beside these little girls. My son decided to sit his little butt inbetween a blond and a redhead. Next he put his arms around both girls shoulders and gave them both a kiss. All the mothers in the play gronp didn't see it because they were too busy gossiping. The mothers of the girls were laughing too. I got up and walked over to the sceen of the action and the redhead's mother said, "I wish I had my viedo camera, that was so funny!"
So hopefully I have taught Devin that you need to ask a girl her name before you pull that stunt again. Oh well boys will be boys.
It's all in the jeans...er, genes.
Either/or. :)
Ahhh... My Phoebe is 7 and a half, and going on 12 in the "impressing the other sex" part of life. I thought it was cos they say gals grow faster than boys, but after reading this, it seems all kids want to impress!
Posted by: rae at September 7, 2003 03:03 PMwell, i can only hope you don't whip the real human out of him in your effort to keep him tame. what the heck's wrong with "racing" a motorcycle anyhow? and who gets to define what "racing" is? do you ever break the speed limit in your vega?
Posted by: chris at September 7, 2003 03:55 PMWhoa now, not ALL crazy things are done because of girls - the aforementioned "Double Dog Dare' will work wonders...Like the time mu best friend dared me to slide down the river chute that had all the leeches in it and this leech...
Never mind. Oh yeah, we don't grow out of it either.
Posted by: PJ at September 8, 2003 09:21 PMOhhhhyes. I have no children of my own, but I have a lot of other people's, in the form of students. My alltime favorite, a football player I watched over through all 4 college years (including arthroscopic knee surgery in his junior year, which ended his gridiron career), whose own actual mother once described him to a friend of hers as MY baby, jubilantly phoned me the morning of graduation: "Guess what *I* just did!" "Need bail?" "No, silly. I jumped out of a PLANE! I SKYDIVED!!!" Besides being grateful he survived, I was glad he didn't tell me about it beforehand. Oy.
Posted by: Doc Rock at September 9, 2003 10:14 AMThe oldest of three sons, but younger than my big sister, I experienced growing pains like many others, unique in a few ways (grew a millimeter a day for 370 days... legs ached like mad!) and did a few dumb stunts to impress myself and others...
Now I'm raising two lovely, intelligent boys, Big Guy looking so much like MY father that I get an eerie feeling once a week or so, like I'm raising my FATHER instead of my son... and Little Guy so much like me that I can see how dads have favorites... I AM AWARE of my physiological responses when he comes around, but they still happen...
And here in Thailand, as mixed-root boys, they're BOTH in demand as 'beautiful people', a reality I can detest as much as I want, but its a reality nonetheless...
I grew out of 'dumb stunts to impress others' and I'm enjoying shepherding them through the dumb-stunts department. Little Guy was doing a Superman-Whirl the other day and missed his timing and his footing, and fell and bonked his noggin... no blood, but one big purple goose-egg attested to his misplaced bravado... hugs and a nap helped...
I wouldn't miss it for the world!
Posted by: Eye Opener at September 17, 2003 06:02 AMOur son, now three and-a-half, started showing off for the girls as soon as he could walk. Before he could walk, he flirted (he still flirts). Yes, it is very definitely hardwired.
Posted by: Michael at September 17, 2003 09:01 AMGee, I don't see a thing wrong with being hard wired.....
Posted by: JT_Hunter at September 18, 2003 04:37 AM