My oldest is now 10. Last year, or maybe it was two years ago, he went to a sleepover birthday party as kids do. At the time, I didn’t think anything of the fact that he was the only boy on the invite list. After the party ended, I forgot it had even happened.
I was at another birthday party a few months ago where the topic was “that party with the boy sleeping over.” The parents were sagely nodding to each other, relieved that one girl just went for the movie and didn’t sleep over. According to the group wisdom, her parents had done well.
“Uh, yeah,” I finally said. “That one boy there was my son.”
I was surprised mixed gender sleepovers would be whispered-about elementary school scandal. I honestly don’t see the risk at that age. I can imagine what parents might be worried about, but really? They’re 8- and 9-year-olds. There are parents actively hosting the party. Nothing is going to happen. Especially in our town of Berkeley, Calif., known for its liberal social and political views, where almost all of these kids have been socialized to have friends of both genders. This town is supposedly liberal and woke. My son isn’t even thinking about crushes yet, let alone anything physical.
These parents were even more surprised when I told them my mom let me have mixed gender sleepovers … in high school. The positive socialization aspect of boys seeing girls as viable friends and not just as potential hookups are why my mom, and the parents of my friends, didn’t care about our slumber parties. They knew we were friends. I’m still friends with all of them today. If we’re trying to create a world where men treat women as equals rather than only as objects of desire, we need to drop the taboos we put on their social interaction. We need to let them be friends.
There’s more, though. All your fears about mixed gender sleepovers assume your kids are straight.
Same-sex sleepovers and assumptions
Whatever you’re worried about kids doing at slumber parties doesn’t magically disappear for LGBTQ kids. Every parent I know at our school would be fine if their kids were gay, but I wonder what that would mean for their views on slumber parties. It seems like an unexamined aspect of parenting LGBTQ kids. A lot of kids seem to know their orientation at an early age and, especially where I live, they are more likely to talk about or acknowledge the existence and validity of same-sex relationships.
So if your 8-year-old son tells you he’s gay, what do you do about slumber parties? Only send him to parties with girls? Or just with straight boys? Is either really a rational approach? Should you approach things any differently than you would with your cishet (cisgender and heterosexual) son?
No. The fact is, you should trust your children to be children. And if you don’t, maybe it’s time to examine how you’ve parented them. Have you contributed to oversexualizing your children in ways that you’re not aware of?
My other question is this: If people are worried about co-ed sleepovers at this age, what does my transgender child do? Attend only sleepovers with children of the gender they were assigned at birth or with their gender identity? What if the child is gender fluid? No sleepovers at all?
My hope is that my trans child can sleep over wherever xe’s invited. And I hope those invitations come from friends of every gender.
We need to examine our own filters and realize that our fears for our children don’t always align with reality. My young son isn’t a predator, and your young daughter isn’t a harlot. My 8-year-old trans child doesn’t have internet access and is not yet steeped in hookup culture. If xe’s hanging out with your son or daughter, xe just wants to play make-believe or maybe Candy Land. Kids are innocent, and we shouldn’t intrude on that with our own fears or misguided jokes about their relationships with people of other genders. If you’re really parenting your kids, you should be able to trust them to hang out with their friends no matter how they identify.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roberto Santiago could never decide on a job so he endeavors to have all of them. He is a writer, teacher, sign language interpreter, rugby referee and stay-at-home dad. He writes about the intersections of family, sports and culture at An Interdisciplinary Life.
Mixed gender sleepovers photo: © nimito / Adobe Stock.
Hi Roberto, societies sometimes can be really harsh on our kids. There are so many things that I worry about when it comes to societal norms and how they hinder our kids’ growth. You’re a great parent. More power to you!
I love this talk and point of view. We haven’t been to any mixed gender sleepovers in Chicago yet. Mostly because at this age, 11, (or at least in my son’s class) boys hang with boys and girls with girls.
This reminds me of the craziness In the 80’s, when it was a big scandal if a teacher were gay, as if that automatically made him or her a pedophile, and a danger to children, when NOTHING could be further from the truth.
Thanks for speaking truth to soccer moms.
Here in the Netherlands, parents often organize slumber parties for their kids especially int he winter, season of cocooning. Boys and girls are dressed in the same unisex nightdresses and will sleep in the same room, often on matresses on the floor. I never heard about any trouble.
No such thing as a “unisex nightdress”. That’s a female thing. You can spin it anyway you want, but no normal boy would be caught dead in a nightdress.
For curiosities sake I did a sexual abuser search on family watchdog for Berkley and found 49 Mapped Offenders and 23 Un-Mapped Offenders there. So I am really not sure about your logic in thinking that Berkley is a safe place for children and that all parents and their children that live there are safe and are safe people. Rationalizing away reality is dangerous for your children.
When our daughter was 13,she went to a mixed gender slumber party hosted by a friend of hers who was in puberty and bedwetting because of it.The girl wore cloth diapers and plastic pants to bed every night,so at bedtime,to help the girl out,the daughter and the other girls put on her diapers and plastic pants and wore them to bed.The boys thought it was cute that the girls were wearing the diapers and plastic pants and none of them even thought about wanting to fool around with the girls!