This is a debate that a friend of mine and I had concerning whether or not it’s okay for a girl to hit a boy, but that boys don’t hit girls. I guess what adds fuel to this debate for me is that I just happened to flip through and saw Tyra having a show on battered boyfriends and saw the Sixteen and Pregnant show where one girl basically slams her “baby daddy” up against the wall. While I am a woman and am all for the rights of women, I also think there are some men (who once were boys) who need to be stood up for every once in awhile and it doesn’t mean that they are weak or wimps for not standing up for themselves or that they are somehow stronger by not. Where are we teaching that either gender being victimized is okay?

When a boy batters a girl, they are usually immediately reprimanded, yet when women take out aggression or anger on a boy physically, it is somehow more accepted. If the roles of the two teens on Sixteen and Pregnant had been reversed and we would have watched a boy slam a girl up against the wall, cops would’ve been called and he would have been arrested. There are people that blame the victim (whether male or female) and say that they should leave the relationship or the situation. However what if leaving is not a realistic or a desirable option for them? What if they do need to learn how to respect each other and live together peacefully?

Let’s face it, in some homes when children are both sharing the same space 24/7, they get in each other’s ways, overstep boundaries and simply step on each other’s toes. Unfortunately, the initial reaction can be to respond with a hit or a kick rather than leaving the room or removing themselves from the situation. Then it becomes a “who started it first?”. As a parent, you can’t stand over your children to make sure that if someone’s toes have been stepped on, you are armed and ready to teach them the proper method of removing themselves from the situation and how they should handle it according to Dr. Phil, Nanny 911 or whomever. So before you know it, a fight has insued and often you will see one chasing after the other and some type of chaos. Fortunately with mine, after several laps of chasing, they usually end up laughing and having so much fun that they have forgot why they were so angry and after the other in the first place.

I think that to watch your children or any person being hit or victimized, whether it is male, female or your children or not, is hard to see. But there have been times as a parent where I will allow them to work it out even if that means with a bite, scratch or hair pull. If one looks like they might really hurt the other, I’ll step in but there’s not enough time in the day to play referree for every squabble. However recently the dynamics and the fights with my twins have changed. My daughter, though female has always been bigger than my son. Therefore, in most fights he is the underdog who I have to worry about her hurting him.

I’m not sure where all of this changed, what movie my son saw or game he played, but one weekend my son happened to believe that he had become some type of ninja fighter. He kept bouncing, kicking and punching through the air showing all of us his new fighting techniques. I knew this would not be good for his sister. So when a typical fight over something insued, I began to see this anger in him that I had never seen before and for the first time ever, I had to step in to save my daughter. While there was definitely a call to his father to let him know what had went on and for my son to be reprimanded, there was also a little “peace” of victory that I felt for him. He would no longer be bullied by his sister who just happened to be heavier and physically stronger than he was. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a fight that has happened since between the two of them.

So when it comes to the saying of “it’s never okay to hit a girl” I say that there are many of us girls out there that can handle it and sometimes even need it. I happened to be a pretty tough girl growing up who suffered black eyes at the hands of a boy (he happened to be a very nice boy I might add) with a sling shot and somehow I survived that rock fight as well as many of the others that followed. It’s not always the girl who is the victim. We might even be the instigator or the perputrator. I want my sons to know that if there isn’t anyone else there to help or save you, self defense and even maybe fighting back might just be what the doctor ordered.