At least, I hope no mom has that aspiration for their little beauties.
According to About.com (the tween edition) here is the difinition:
"Mean Girls" is a tween expression used to describe girls who exhibit anti-social behavior known as Relational Aggression. The term was popularized by the movie Mean Girls, starring Lindsay Lohan. Mean girl behavior includes gossip, verbal put downs of others, bullying, backstabbing, and using others to get ahead.
Mean girls can be found at school, on the bus, and at extra-curricular activities. They are particularly good at turning friend against friend, and they target girls who they are jealous of, or who stick out from the crowd. Mean girls thrive on drama, and often resort to cyberbullying to torment their victims.
Also Known As: Divas, Gossip Girls, Meanies, Frenemy, Relational Aggression, Queen Bees, and Poison Pals.
My son and his friend had the joys of meeting a duo of mean girls today at the park.
Before I get further into the story, let me throw this disclaimer out: My son is not perfect. Nor is he completely innocent all of the time. He is 4, he is rambunctious and sometimes can be a little rough.
I had a play date today with three other mamas and the majority of kiddos happened to be boys and were 3 and 4-year-olds.
My son and one of his buddies' attention was captured by two little girls. At first, I thought they were precious. Then, I quickly found that they were mean girls in the making.
They found the girls playing on the jungle gym.
I laughed because the boys were being pirates and the girls were magic butterflies. The little girls ran to this little pink toy car that was attached to a spring.
The little boys were quick to follow.
At first, they headed over to the blue springy car. But, it wasn't long before the girls caught their attention again.
The girls were inside a pink toy car and the boys were hanging out by it.
I made a comment to one of my girlfriends that I was in trouble because Jake was already girl crazy ...
It was cute, all four kiddos were smiling.
All of the sudden one of the moms came from across the playground, came up to the two boys and faux-politely asked them to leave the girls alone.
I was a little confused to what the problem was.
I felt the mamma bear in me start to growl.
My little boy and his friend weren't doing anything wrong.
I was watching them play because I thought it was cute they were chatting up two little girls. The girls' mothers weren't paying as much attention because they were pushing little kids on the baby swings.
In this case, the little boys were being awesome and prior to the mother asking them to get lost, I was proud of how they were playing.
So, back to taming the mama bear beast I had growling inside ....
I got up and asked the boys to come play with me on the blue toy car.
I didn't address the girls or moms.
Situation diffused, right?
No.
The little guy playing with my son walked over to the pink car again. He didn't have a chance to say anything and, again, wasn't doing anything wrong.
One of the little girls tells him that they don't want the boys near them. They didn't seem to mind until the mom intervened.
I could tell both boys were also confused -- both are social butterflies and make friends wherever they go.
They attempt to play with the girls again. Poor little guys didn't want to give it up.
I call them back over, but not before one of the little girls starts to cry.
She runs to her mom and says that the boys hit her.
I was watching and this did not happen. Neither boy ever even touched one of the little girls.
But little miss priss sure made mama think something happened.
I was pretty amazed that a little preschooler could manipulate a twist things so brilliantly and that the mom was oblivious. By brilliantly, I mean, she is probably going to grow up an evil genius.
Could you imagine if I had gone over and told the mom her daughter was a pretty little liar?
And in fairness, at this point, the girls' mothers were starting to get into mamma bear mode too.
I still trying to keep the kids separated, but the boys tried hanging out with the girls a few more times.
By this point, my friend comes near me. I could tell that she was busy taming her mama bear growl too.
I whispered to her that I didn't really know what to do in this situation. She agreed, and said that she would rather teach the kids how to play with everyone.
I agreed.
Then, one little girl gets out of the little pink car, walks over to me and tells me, "We don't want the boys to play with us."
At that point, the boys were not even paying attention to them.
I told her not to worry.
I start to feel myself get defensive again, because I am essentially punishing the boys by forcing them to stay away from little girls because they're simply being divas in the making. I started to feel like their mom's should tell them to be nice. I guess, this was a good lesson for the boys. Not everyone will want to be your friend. Deal with it and move on? That lesson is a little harsh at 4.
Then, of course, our boys get into a little squabble with each other and they trade hits. I'm not quite sure how and why the fight started. We separate them, talk to them individually and have them come back and apologize to each other. And poof, instant best friends again.
While all of this is happening, I hear one of the mothers tell the girls something to the effect of, "this is exactly why we don't play with them. Let's go."
Surprisingly, I let that slide. It's probably because I wasn't certain what they said exactly. But it resonated with me nonetheless. I was annoyed by that comment the whole way home.
Then, I started thinking ...
I would much rather let my kids learn how to handle things on his own rather than swooping in and letting the dust fly.
There isn't one right way how to parent, but there sure are a whole lot of wrong ways. I feel proud that, in this scenario, I believe my friend and I took the high road. Then again, this could be the mama bear in me still growling.
