Toughening My Son

DH tells me that kids of A’s age (12 years) are bad and mean. You can reason with an adult but not with kids, especially boys. This was in reply to my question whether I should get A’s father to talk to the boy who started this rumour in A’s school about A being called gay.

The reasons to him being called Gay are so silly and petty that I could slap the boys who made fun of him. When A had come to UK this June he did a lot of shopping at the duty free shop on his way back to Dubai. And because he didn’t have a hand baggage I bought him a small black bag to put in all his purchases. This bag is something like a smaller version of a school bag. But my folly was that it had a small tag with the name Roxy on it.

Now Roxy is such an unassuming name. I had a senior in college who was called Roxy and he was a guy. So I really didn’t think twice about the tag. But when A went to school with it, his class kids said that it was a girl’s bag. Next came the swimming incident. A is not a good swimmer and is a bit hesitant when he swims to the deep end of the pool. So when he was at the deep end of the pool and got scared, he held on the legs of the boy who was close to him. This is such an innocent act that anyone in A’s situation would do. From them on all his classmates started calling him gay.

Believe me I can put up with almost anything and not lose my temper over it. But this one takes the cake. This particular boy who taunts him said “Your dad f***** you mom.” My poor boy came back home and during one of the calls asked me what does f*** mean. What do I say? I just said that it is something that big people do and sometimes you make babies in the process. Who is their right minds would teach their kids these sorts of words?

While there is very less that I can do to help my son with him being so far away and not in touch with me on a day to day basis, this whole incident has made me realise that my son is pretty naïve, no VERY naïve and though he is 12 he is still a kid. Not that I expected him to be mature or anything of that sort. But being a tennis champion and pretty shrewd in his game, I had some how assumed that that shrewdness would permeate into real life. Can you imagine I had to actually tell him – If someone hits you A, you have to thulp the shit out of him. And if the school authorities pull you up, I will be there to talk to them. It is such bad advice but at least it is a step forward to toughen him up. Bad mother you might say!!