Falling in Love at 4

Listening to: The absolute madhouse chaos of McDonald’s play place on a busy day

Mood: Content

My eldest daughter has a boyfriend. At 4. Well, to be fair, he’s not really a boyfriend, but he is a boy, and according to my daughter he is the love to her and a very good friend. He really likes to play with her at preschool, every single day! I find it both adorable and a little scary all at the same time. My daughter’s version of love, at a ripe old age of 4, is so innocent it’s amazing. He’s just a very good friend, but they are both extraordinarily fond of each other.

It also made me wonder what I’m going to do when she starts dating. We have a good 14 years until that happens (I know, I know, but I can hope anyhow), but I really wonder how I, and more specifically her father, will deal with it. I know I’m biased about my daughter, pretty much everyone is biased about their own kids, but I think she’s on the attractive side of the spectrum. I especially think she has pretty eyes. So after reviewing my own dating experiences and my knowledge of boys in general, I was trying to decide if I should stand at the door with a really big stick or just go right to a shotgun. Perhaps both….

It is my hope that I will raise both my daughters to know their worth and how to judge the nature of a man well enough that I won’t have to deal with any really bad choices, just them growing up. It’s such a fine balance to raise children between the beauty of childhood innocence and shattering it completely to try and protect them from the world by overeducating them about it. I was very sheltered as a child and as a result made some spectacularly bad choices the minute I was out on my own. I thought I could handle certain things that were way beyond my depth. I want to educate my girls to the point that they recognize that the world is a huge, scary, complex place, but not so much that they are scared to go out and make it on their own.

Everyone makes mistakes growing up – it’s inevitable. What matters is the kind of mistakes that you make. Let me give you an example. I’d say that deciding to drink way too much at a party when you’re under aged but then calling your parents to come pick you up is a much smaller mistake than going to that same party and trying to drive yourself home because you think you can handle it. I don’t want any hate mail for this – it’s just an example. I’m not condoning underage drinking or anything like that. In order for your kids to be able to make smart decisions like this, you have to talk to them about the hard stuff. My parents didn’t do this for me. They just said don’t do any of this bad stuff. Or else. I want to take an active roll in my kids thinking about drinking, drugs, and sex. I want them to make smart choices because we have discussed the consequences and they understand them. I’m not knocking my parents. By the time I got old enough to think about this stuff, my mom was on her own dealing with 2 teenagers, and did her best. But now that I have my own kids, I am definitely more prone to thinking how I want to handle this stuff with my own kids.

So until my daughter gets old enough to date, I think I’ll encourage friendships with boys too. It will be good for her to have some friendship experiences with boys too.

Becky