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Health & Fitness

Oh, Brother!

Pity the poor girl with three older brothers that are worried about her facing boys like them in middle school. However, the author details the benefits of knowing that big brother is watching.

We were lingering at the breakfast table last Sunday morning when he said, “You know, I’m worried about Pea’s texting. Let’s check her phone, and if she has a boyfriend, we should drive to his house to talk to him.”

That may seem like an extreme measure for a pre-pubescent girl, but then again, it was her teenage brother – not her father – talking.

By all accounts, Pea is not yet texting with boys, and she isn’t chasing them around the playground, either. But Heaven help her when the hormones kick in, because her big brothers are watching. Very closely.

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A few weeks back, Pea attended her first middle-school dance. She and her closest friends are on the reserved side, so didn’t flock to any of the Friday-night dances last fall. With the start of a new year, though, they decided to hit one together, and that threw them into a tailspin. Them being my three sons, of course.

 “Do you think she’ll dance with boys?” # 1 son asked.

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“I want to see her before she goes,” said #2. When told that she was getting ready at a friend’s house, #2 replied, “Okay then, she needs to send a photo of herself before she leaves. I want to check what she’s wearing.”

Number 3 son suggested to his ninth-grade buddies, who were re-fueling on pizza at our house, “Hey, let’s go up to the dance and offer to chaperone.”

Poor girl. And, poor any-boy-who-ever-dares-to-ask-her-out (or even to dance).

After the dance, my three sons all – separately, from wherever they were hanging that night—contacted Pea for the low-down. They were relieved to hear that she hadn’t slow-danced or otherwise tangled with any male classmates.

Having big brothers may have helped delay boy-craziness for Pea. She has witnessed the gritty underbelly of boys’ lives; sitting in the back of a mini-van as we picked up dirty, sweaty, stinky boys from sports practices, hearing the goofy way adolescent boys talk when they get together and witnessing the rumple-haired, bare-chested, boxer-clad look of her siblings every morning. No wonder she prefers crushing on squeaky clean pop-stars such as Justin Bieber.

To hear more about Pea’s overbearing big brothers, as well as the three treasured bros I grew up with, click here. My colleague and friend and I take turns updating this blog, Permission Slips, each week. To subscribe, please send an email to PermissionSlips@gmail.com.

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