This is the first post in a new series I’m starting, the Weekly WTF. Once a week, I’m going to post a quick reflection on something I saw that made me raise my eyebrows and say “WTF”. This week’s is a post I saw on Instagram of a creator responding to another post. The OP starts off by saying the typical social media boymom thing that boils down to saying they love all their children equally, but they love their sons more. I’m not here to harp on that variety of boy mom; there’s plenty online about why those attitudes are a problem and I don’t have anything meaningful to add to that right now. I’m reacting to a single thing she said later in the video.
She talks about how she is looking forward to her daughters’ weddings because of all the great wedding things like dresses and picking flowers. But, thinking about her sons wedding, she just wants to cry. Then she says, and this is a direct quote from the video, “He hits his sisters, he punches them. I’m like, maybe he’s having a hard day.”
Nope. Absolutely not.
She doesn’t say in the video how old her kids are, but I’m going to assume this child is old enough to have a conversation about not punching people. How are you, as a parent of all of the children involved in this situation, just brushing off his violence toward his sisters because he might be having a bad day? Before I get to the son, I want to take a moment to think about what this woman is teaching her daughters. She’s showing them that his feelings are more important than their physical safety, that they are expected to tolerate violence from their brother because he’s a boy and that’s just how boys are. She’s teaching them their mother does not have their backs, that she’s not a safe person if they’re in a bad situation. That one sentence, justifying physical violence because he’s having a tough time, sets a horrible precedent for these girls.
Coming back to the son, by allowing and justifying this behavior, she’s showing him it’s acceptable to respond to his emotions with violence. That’s a lesson that will stick with him and will not go away on its own. The way she talks about him hitting his sisters sounds like this is an ongoing problem. I don’t care what kind of day a child has, or what kind of emotions they’re feeling, if they are resorting to violence that behavior has to be corrected. We’re not raising our sons to think it’s acceptable to punch other people because they’re upset and we’re certainly not allowing it to become a common occurrence. I just hate the way she talks about his wedding and then glosses over the violence toward his sisters. It’s like she knows his future wife is in danger and she’s unwilling to do anything about it. That’s all, this whole thing is just really gross.