Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 24, 1992 TAG: 9202260016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CAN'T LIVE WITH 'EM . . .
The mother of a 10-year-old boy had a question: Why did her son all at once decide he no longer liked girls? And why had his pals done the same thing?You need look no farther than the comic strips, notably "Calvin and Hobbes," to see that boys and girls have always had their differences.
And you need only think back to your own childhood to remember that all was not smooth in your relationships with the opposite sex.
But there is a time, it seems, when both boys and girls profess a loathing for each other. It doesn't last forever - otherwise we wouldn't be here - but it does flourish for a few years, at least.
When does it happen, and why?
For boys, the behavior generally crops up at age 10 or 11, says Victoria Fu, professor of family and child development at Virginia Tech. With girls, it often occurs earlier, perhaps around age 7, and concludes by the time boys begin to feel the same way.
"Part of it is a developmental stage that has gone on probably for as long as human beings have been around," Fu says.
And part of it, says Thomas Ollendick, director of Tech's clinical psychology training program, is socially reinforced.
In developmental and psychoanalytical literature, the phenomenon is known as chumship. It's regarded as a necessary stage where the young friends share their most intimate feelings and thoughts. They identify with each other as people who have not only the same sex, but also "the same interests, motives and goals," Fu says. "At that age, boys are becoming more boys and girls are becoming more girls," Ollendick says. Spending time with their own kind reaffirms what it means to be a boy or girl; indeed, the shared thoughts and feelings help them determine how to be a boy or girl.
The intimacy of chumship is essential for children's development, Fu says. It serves as the basis for future relationships with both sexes. Through chumship, boys and girls develop "a sense of mutuality, reciprocity, give and take and so on."
Ollendick agrees. But he is less sure that the stage would occur to the same degree were there not considerable social pressures to keep boys and girls apart in preadolescence.
"In kindergarten, you were always expected to do things with boys and girls. When you get to be about 7 or 8, everyone starts to think we need to separate them more."
Peer pressure, family attitudes and segregating children's activities by sex all create the expectation of separateness.
Publicly, boys and girls may say they have no interest in each other. Privately, they may be less adamant than they sound, Ollendick says.
"I don't think there's anything biological that determines that boys wouldn't like to play with girls, and vice versa," he says.
Research at Virginia Tech and elsewhere indicates that, when given the chance, young boys and girls will choose to play with each other.
"It would be interesting to see what would happen if the social pressures weren't there," Ollendick says.
He remembers thinking, when he was about 10, that he wouldn't have minded including girls in games of softball or tag "if it were OK." It is the kind of nagging thought many a young boy would never reveal to his male friends - who might be thinking the same thing.
This is not to say that boys are dying to be with girls all the time. When they vociferously exclude girls from their clubhouse or games, Fu says, they are demonstrating control over that aspect of their lives.
Unless taken to an extreme, all of this should be viewed as a normal, positive way that young people validate their worth, Fu says.
"It does help in terms of later development," Ollendick says. But he contends that the notion of boys and girls hating each other with comic-strip intensity is "part of the myth of childhood . . . It has to be examined more."