Neighbours angry at DS for snapping back and daughter’s homophobia - hypocrisy??

[TheNoisyDeer]

DS, 13, came out in Year 6 at the age of 10 and he has struggled with making friends ever since. His boy friends always used to make him the butt of the joke so he stopped being friends with them. He has a couple of female friends now but he still feels like he can’t be himself around them because they give him the side eye when they talk about boys and he talks about boys too. Due to this he feels on the defence when his sexuality is spoken about.

I invited our neighbours over earlier this evening for chat and drinks in the sunshine and the younger girl, 8, overheard her sister (the older daughter), 11, talking to DS about their crushes. She laughed at him, made a few comments about it being weird and called him a “gay boy”. I don’t know whether she’d picked it up from school or somewhere, but DS was clearly upset. He snapped and called her “a stupid bitch” and to “f off”.

There was immediate anger from her parents because she’s only 8 and they said there was no excuse for speaking to a young girl like that and demanded I tell him off. The older daughter also took her side and shouted at him to not talk to her sister like that. He looked startled, humiliated and ran inside.

I went inside and spoke to him about the language he used and said it wasn’t acceptable, especially to a girl that young, but I also told him I understood why he was hurt and that nobody should mock someone’s sexuality. DS said he didn’t care how old she was because she’d been horrible to him first and then refused to go back outside and apologise. I explained this to my neighbours and the mum said she wanted to leave and won’t put up with her daughters being spoken to in that manner and they left.

Ideally I would have expected the children to apologise to each other, preferably her first as she started it and then moved on but I was shocked by their reaction to just leave. We’ve been good friends for years and now I feel hurt by their lack of accountability for the homophobia and hypocrisy. I wouldn’t like the friendship to end but I won’t be bowing down to them.

AIBU for thinking both children were in the wrong but both the daughter and parents are more so?

What if its an 8 year old calling you weird, autistic and laughing at you?

Was the boy 8?

I would imagine OP's son would not react in the same way to his 13 year old "friends" taunting him - I doubt he was calling them "stupid bitches". Its much easier to retaliate when your opponent is basically a baby.

@localnotail yes I bet he terrified her. It's bizarre how much some posters are vilifying a literal 8 year old on here. World's gone mad.

It's still not OK.
8 year olds are well aware of hurtful actions

Ye 13 year old boys never fight...

If anything he'd likely react stronger and more violently.

Homophobic behaviour needs calling out

No he was 13 and he was accompanied by a 12 year old. The kids had both been accused of homophobic bullying before it started at primary school. They demonstrated a pattern of uncorrected homophobic abuse from a young age.

The children who did it had a history of homophobic bullying stretching back to primary school. It was left uncorrected by their parents who to be fair appeared to know very little about it. The kids were younger than my son.

He wasn't talking to an 8 year old girl about them though. If you read the OP again, she just overheard him talking with some friends.

Maybe he needs more other topics he can talk about with girls? Maybe many of the other things they can talk about are blanks to him- perhaps see what tv the girls watch and he can watch some of those? Music? Take up knitting? Obviously you might have done all this… I’d prefer less talking about crushes full stop but especially between kids that age who aren’t close friends, 11 to 13 is a big gap and the 11yo parents might feel that way. My 11yo wouldn’t have a clue about crushes and certainly doesn’t have any. He asked about gay recently after hearing something on the radio and I explained it when boys like boys. He said I guess I’m gay then, I just like boys not girls. so I had to explain romantically likes, and he doesn’t romantically like his friends and that’s ok he will find out in time when he starts thinking romantically about other kids. I’d be unhappy at an older teen having crush type conversations with him, and I’d be more sensitive to that for my daughter.

The family had no high horse to be on. They have raised a homophobic child and did nothing when she displayed her homophobia.

Gayboy is deeply distressing however it’s used which is always a negative. Primary schools react strongly to it if used. This came from home.

It’s not odd for kids to know their sexuality at that age and to discuss it. My son came out to me at 10 and knew without a shadow of a doubt. Ditto other family members and friends of my daughters.

it’s not sexual identity politics!!! How dare you.

And quit with the word “indulging” . What my son needed was validation, understanding, reassurance and kindness which he got- at home.

Golly. Yes. You are right. I must admit I'm no younger a young thing at 50-something so it's been quite a while since I raised an 8-year-old.

There's nothing else for it:
this child should be Immediately and without further haste be taken from its parents and sent to a Summer education camp so it can spend 8 hours a day being taught on all matters of proper conduct.

I know that it will probably object strongly to this and cry-as it just wants to play hopscotch, play with its dolls, eat sweets and be with its parents and friends for the Summer hols- but this is what must happen!!

Some other - lesser- people might think that a child of that age cannot reasonably be expected to understand the complexities of social interactions and human sexuality but what the heck do they know?
Plebs. And they probably give their children fruit shoots.

They had a reason to act offended because of the absolutely foul language OP's son used.

I agree family has a lot to answer for.

I would think he probably did would not react for fear of retaliation and lashed out at an 8 year old as she would not be able to hurt him.

Caused by their daughter and their decision not to jump in and pull her up on it.

There is a difference of being taunted and being literally beaten up and being spat at. I doubt you would call the police on the 8 year old saying stupid shit to you, but you absolutely would on the 14 year old physically hurting you.

You’re very naive as to what 8 year olds that sit on SM and are babysat by phones are like now. Hopscotch and dolls no longer cut it.

Good for him. Dont invite them over again. She learnt that at home.

Thanks for the further re-education.

Eight -year-old girls are clearly beyond redemption nowadays.

Thus, in light of this fresh information you have kindly provided me with, I shall amend my previous post made today to say that they should be take away and locked up permanently for their own good and the rest of society!!

They clearly are the devil's work!

What with their homophobia and all.
I have absolutely no truck with the idea that a child of this age lacks the capacity to truly know about sexuality as it has not yet reached the developmental stage to fully do so and in light of such information we should be more lenient with it than we would e. g. an 18-year-old.

I blame the fruit shoots.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2y5zj0g0ko

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjpx7rnredo

It kills

Oh do give over

Completely agree.

While of course there is nothing at all wrong with being gay, it is not the sexuality of the majority of people and children will pick on those who are different (though in this instance an 8-year-old is too young to understand exactly why its words are hurtful).

Also, of course, it can be reasonably argued that a 10-year-old child, unlike say a 16-year-old, cannot be sure of its sexual orientation yet.

I think that a wise parent would discuss this in detail with their child and advise against any coming out until it is older.

This 13-year-old boy may now even find that his orientation has changed but its now part of his identity.