No Shoes. No Shirt. Big Problem.

So I am still working out this being a mother of teenage boys’ situation. On any given day, I can have numerous teenage boys in my backyard or in my home. Between the 12 year old, the 14 year old and the 16 year old – they can fill a yard quickly. I have been to Wal-Mart 4 times since the beginning of summer vacation and filled my garage refrigerator with cases and cases of water, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Fanta, Iced Tea, and Kool Aid. I have stocked my pantry with junk food galore for those boys – chips, cookies, Twinkies, and Cheese Puffs! My freezer is continuously filled with popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, Klondike Bars, Hot Pockets, Soft Pretzels and Pizza Bagels. I’ve learned that those boys can do some serious damage fast to my stock. But I don’t mind. I like having them here. I like knowing they are safe. They are out of trouble. Besides, they are so busy.

They are outside shooting on our lacrosse goal, shooting basketballs, throwing the football, jumping on the trampoline, playing wiffle ball, playing badminton or volleyball and even Kick the Can. In the evenings, they play “manhunt” – a modern day form of hide and seek. They make trips back and forth on their bikes to the neighborhood pool for a bit throughout the day and return again. They may be here as early as 8:15 in the morning and as late as 10:30 at night. I don’t mind inviting them for dinner. Spaghetti is easy to cook in large quantities and it’s simple enough to buy enormous packages of chicken legs and thighs and grill them. I’ve even had them stand in my refrigerator at 8:15 am and ask if I could fry some bacon. (Now that I did not do. But I did make turkey club sandwiches for them for lunch. A woman has to know her limitations.) But it’s okay. It’s what I wanted. I wanted to be the house that everyone hangs at. It’s a good way to make sure that my teenagers are taking part in good clean fun rather than experimenting with something more serious at someone’s else’s house whose parents may not be home all day.

They know the rules at our house. They know that foul language is not acceptable. They know they can come and go all day long as long as they stop in to say hello and goodbye to me so that I can keep track of who is here when. They know not to throw their trash around and to use the recycle bins. They all get along and rotate turns with sports equipment. They manage to organize and orchestrate all sorts of activities with very few issues. I’ve even had these boys completely unprompted take their dishes and glasses to the sink, rinse them and place them in my dishwasher. (Their mothers would be ecstatic to know that – but probably also irritated that it doesn’t happen at home!) They all use wonderful manners and thank me each and every time for each thing I do, buy or supply. Are they loud? You bet! Can they be obnoxious? Absolutely! But a group of teenage boys does not intimidate me in the least.

So now you must be wondering, “What is she trying to work out?” In the opening of this piece, I referred to working out being a mother of teenage boys. It’s like this. It’s the teenage girls that happen to come over when the boys are all here. It doesn’t take many. It could be one or two. They usually travel in pairs – but sometimes there is the brave soul that works her way over here alone. This is when the dynamics of the day take a different path and sometimes leave me unsure how to handle things. Typically the girls don’t “belong” to any one in particular. Meaning, they aren’t someone’s girlfriend. They just happen to be friends with the group. Yet at any moment, any one of them can have one of these guys drape an arm around her, or she is going to wrap her arms around one of their necks and rest her head on his shoulder. Most of the time, I don’t know these girls prior and meet them for the first time upon their arrival. My boys are very good about introducing them to me when they show up and always manage to relay some kind comment about my home being nice or me being pretty. Seems nice enough, right?

So here is the scenario. Summertime. Many teenage boys hanging at my house. Teenage girls show up. They head out to the backyard. I am doing dishes in my kitchen watching out the window. They decide to jump on the trampoline. Teenage girls are in bikini tops. The boys seem very happy. The girls seem clueless. I watch. I watch. I pace. I am uncomfortable. These girls are in bikini tops jumping on the trampoline with an audience of a dozen teenage boys…and we’ll just say that these girls have been physically gifted. Now what? Do I ignore it? Do I walk outside and take them some shirts? Do I suggest they go home and get some clothes? I wonder do they KNOW what these boys are thinking? Do they care? Am I being ridiculous? I think about my youngest and only girl. How would I feel if that were her? Maybe none of those boys are thinking anything inappropriate – maybe I am reading too much into the situation. Later after the girls leave, I speak with my sons about it. I wasn’t wrong. They noticed. They enjoyed it immensely. I questioned them whether they thought the girls were even aware that what they were doing wasn’t okay. They didn’t seem to believe the girls were aware. My 12 year old was just hoping they would come back another time.

The next week we were at our marina where we keep our sailboat celebrating the 4th of July. 25 feet across the water from our boat was a large group of bikini wearing 20 something girls. They were playing music loudly, singing along triumphantly, holding a beer in one hand while dancing VERY closely with each other. I looked at the bow of my sailboat. I have 4 children standing there in awe. The boys literally have their lower jaws hanging. They suddenly remember that their good friend owns the boat next to the girls and felt the urge to go visit him. Hmm. Meanwhile my 10 year old daughter is mesmerized by the situation. She keeps saying, “What are they doing?” “Why are they doing that?” In their eyes, they were just having a good time and they saw nothing wrong with what they were doing – after all it is their boat – it’s a party – they are just singing and dancing, right?

The thought process is usually that boys are the physical aggressors who will take advantage of teenage girls. We have spent a great deal of time raising our boys to respect females. My husband and I have been very strict about them being physically demonstrative with their “girlfriends”. We have actually had to seriously counsel our sons in relationships that seemed to have physically aggressive girls involved. It is awkward to say the least. My husband recently said, “If I was 14 years old and a girl had done that, I think my head would have exploded. How come girls didn’t act like that 36 years ago?” Now obviously he was joking – but it still leaves me in a dilemma.

My oldest son believes that even though the girls come to hang out on the trampoline in their bikini tops – it is still good clean fun. I’m not buying it. It's hard to be the parent of the guys. Obviously, if the girls show up scantily clad - they are going to look. But I can't set a rule to have a dress code for girls that visit. In my confusion, I recently shared this conversation with one of my best friends and her teenage boys. The best answer I have at this point came from her 14 year old son. Post a sign outside by the trampoline that says “No Shoes, No Shirt, NO SERVICE!”