This is your fair warning…this is a rant!
*climbs up on this soapbox that someone conveniently left here*
Three weeks ago, my 11 year old boy asked me for an “I heart boobies” bracelet that are all the rage right now. One like his friends have. His 11 year old friends. His 11 year old friends who, apparently, have parents that are cooler, hipper, and more into saving boobies than his mother is.
Photo from here.
I answered the boy with a resounding…hell to the niz-o, and later, his father and I had a discussion.
I expressed that I think the “I heart boobies” slogan…for lack of a better word in my vocabulary to accurately portray my feelings…is BOO-SHIT!
BOO-SHIT, BOO-SHIT…BOO-SHIT!
I should rephrase that. The slogan is cute. It’s catchy. My problem lies in the fact that it’s also catchy to the younger crowd. Boys teetering on their “coming of age” who are just starting to find interest in the femalian fun bags, are now finding it cool, fun, and trendy to “heart boobies.”
Don’t get me wrong. I heart boobies. I do. They attracted an exceptional mate for my ass. They fed my babies, and grew them to be healthy and rotund. They make my shirts fit nicely. They don’t cause me trouble. And they’re errogenous, to boot! I heart ‘em just as much as the next gal.
I don’t, however, “heart” that my 11 year old finds it socially acceptable, (because of an inappropriate marketing ploy, IMO), to advertise and proclaim, that he, in all his pre-pubescent glory, “hearts boobies,” too!
BOO-SHIT!!
In this little discussion I had with my “booby hearting” mate, I told him that I thought the slogan and the bracelets, when worn my young boys, was an invitation for sexual harassment. IMO, it opens the door, for a young boy to say inappropriate things, possibly (read: probably) to a girl, with the convenient cloak of “I said it for the cause,” to cover his ass.
BOO-SHIT!!!
I remember pre and pubescent boys. They don’t need any excuses, or green lights, to be inappropriate with young girls. They come up with plenty of ideas on their own to talk about, look at, oogle, and lust after boobies.
They’re male mammals. They have virtually one track minds.
Fast forward to today, and me on this fucking soapbox…
I received a phone call from the Assistant Principal of the school, letting me know that my boy, and some of his friends were threatening girls, saying that they were going to “grab their boobies, because they heart them.”
Am I blaming my son’s misconduct on the campaign for “The Cure?”
Hell no.
It’s my job as a parent to teach my boy what is and isn’t wildly inappropriate. I failed on this one, for sure.
However, I do think that the bracelets did EXACTLY what I expected they would, right under my own nose. They fanned the embers of a fire that will soon enough be raging, amongst those boys. Those boys, just beginning to feel the twinges of becoming young men.
“I heart boobies.”
Innocent enough for you, or I, I suppose. Notsomuch for the young girls who were threatened (thankfully, only threatened, and not assaulted) by my son and his friends.
I firmly believe that those bracelets should be banned in schools. I also think the gimmicks and marketing for something as serious and personal as breast cancer, should be chosen more carefully.
More importantly, I should be a more vigilant parent, and use this as a way to teach him about those bracelets, what they mean, and what “hearting their boobies” means to the women who’ve tragically lost theirs to cancer.
Boys…if they had boobies, they’d understand!
*soapbox dismount*
