You should have known by now, you were on my list

The Boy was supposed to join us for chicken fingers last night, but I had to un-invite him at the last minute. Munchkin was kind of upset and we had some girl-talk issues to cover. He was OK with it...he understands:-) In his stead, Big Sis made an unscheduled appearance to lend support. Because she is just that awesome:-D

The issue is kind of a sixth-grade thing, but I can also understand why it had her really upset. It turns out that the boys in her class made a "list" whereby they ranked all of the girls in the class in order of hotness. (Ironically, almost the same thing happened on a South Park episode last night...not sure if maybe that was the impetus for the idea. If the episode wasn't new, that would make sense.) It started at a sleepover at someone's house last weekend between like four or five of them, and then expanded to all of the boys voting and all of their votes being compiled into a master list.

Kids that age don't keep secrets really well, so word got out to the girls and the teachers. And some drama ensued...they told me about it when I went to get her. Part of the problem was that I couldn't quite put my finger on what upset her about it most, and she couldn't quite articulate it.

I think the basic issue was that she just felt like it was kind of demeaning, and that it was insulting that the boys kept saying that it should be flattering. After all, she said, if it was really intended to be flattering, there would have been funniest, smartest and nicest lists, too. But she also felt like it was really mean to some girls. It wasn't like they just had a "three hottest" list, but that they had a score for all of the girls in the class, and one of two of the girls got really, really low scores that were quite mean.

I think she just felt like a bunch of boys that she considered good friends had felt the need to judge them all purely on their physical appearance, and to essentially treat them as simply pretty things. I think she just felt a little betrayed by that, and she was just really kind of down about it all. She can be really sensitive, and this bothered her a lot.

So she needed to talk about it, and needed to have some chicken fingers with her big sister:-) I am prety sure that there are people that are better parents than me, but I am pretty good at this kind of stuff...I can read her pretty well and she feels good about talking with me about stuff. Big Sis helped a lot, too...Munchkin idolizes her, and she really cheered her up. Her first suggestion was that the girls create a list of their own, but give much more critical scores. Maybe not the best advice...lol.

The other thing that helped was a phone call she got when we got home. The boy in her class that is probably her best boy friend (and who I secretly keep wishing she will announce as her boyfriend some day...he is adorable and super nice!) called her to apologize for being a part of it. I don't know if his parents made him or if he did it on his own, but Munchkin appreciated the gesture.

So, I think she is OK today. She is definitely hurt by the whole thing, and the other girls in the class that she talked to last night are as well. Sure, they may be over-reacting a bit (this is hardly the greatest insult in world history) but I do think they have a right to be disappointed. Hopefully the whole thing sort of blows over and they all earn their lessons and whatnot.

Other than that, a pretty normal weekend with some Boy time, some Munchkin time, some SHR time and some Fantasy Football:-D