My three year old has a girlfriend.
Let’s call her Sally. I want to protect her anonymity because one day soon my son will contract cooties, eat a booger or two and she won’t want the World Wide Web to know they were once a hot item.
The second week of school Sally’s mom approached me in the hallway. Sally had announced to her grandfather that my son was her boyfriend. I did my best impression of the Wide-Eyed, Blushing Emoji and laughed it off. I hadn’t heard anything about this. Yet. On the way home from preschool I start in on the daily questions. How was school? Fine. What’d you do in P.E.? Hula hoop. Do you have a girlfriend? Of course I do, mom.
Oh, okay. Silly me. Moving on to my Gritted Teeth Emoji impression now. I decided to drop it there – no sense focusing on something to make it an even bigger deal if I elevated the topic with attention, right?
A cursory Google/Pinterest perusal assures me childhood crushes are a normal part of development.
I found little practical advice for this predicament. He wants to have a best friend at school? Awesome. He focuses in on a girlfriend at the exclusion of his other classmates and emerging friendships, not to mention his education? Not awesome.
I know the parents of elementary schoolers out there are rolling their eyes, and I can hear the chuckles from middle school parents. Those of you parenting high schoolers are thinking “Just you wait!” But, this is new territory for us. And three is just so, so young for this boyfriend/girlfriend business.
If the two extreme reactions to preschool romances are high fives/”atta boys” and locking him in his room so he doesn’t date till his thirty, my husband and I fall slightly to the dungeon confinement side of center. At the very least I thought we had a few years to worry about pairing up and the possibility of little broken hearts. Right now our approach is to remain as neutral as possible. This is surely a phase that will pass.
Unless the Paw Patrol pups joined Tinder when I zoned out, I really don’t know where he picked up his relationship savvy. All of my girlfriends I was pregnant with had boys, so his little posse of womb-mates is mostly male. I haven’t surreptitiously betrothed him to any eligible three-year-olds. Our dinner table conversations are far more frequently about ninjas than matters of the heart. Honestly, he’s the child of two late bloomers; I really expected to have to beg him to ask a girl to homecoming in a dozen years so I could do the ceremonial ordering of the corsage at least once.
One day I decided to do a little pointed sleuthing. I needed to know what exactly boyfriend/girlfriend means in Pre-K. Is it a crush, or do I need to also worry about the physical? I trust his teachers, but I needed to know the scope of this premature relationship.
When I asked, he defined “girlfriend” for me: someone who is very kind, who helps you hold a door if it’s heavy and will share her snack. I think we could all use a friend like that.
A decade from now when we truly enter the world of juvenile romances there’s sure to be a girlfriend we don’t quite approve of or doesn’t treat him well. When we face those challenges I’ll think back to this time of innocence fondly and appreciate Sally for being such a good girlfriend to my best boy.
Is anyone else parenting a miniature Casanova? What tips do you have for navigating your child through this stage?
