A page from King of the Hill

With Valentine’s Day gone by, it reminded me how different boys and girls are raised when it comes to the love department.  For instance, I remember a woman at my work a few years ago stating that she told her daughter to leave boys alone because they are yucky! Now, since all of my children (biological and bonus) are boys, I was offended by this at first--my boys are the exact opposite of yucky! Then I realized she was trying to protect her daughter. Then again, here is a prime example of how we perpetrate the double standard. If the girls’ parents are telling her boys are yucky and boys’ parents are encouraging them to be polite and talk with girls, how are they ever going to communicate?! How is this ever going to work?

I thought of an answer to her (years later, my timing is spot on!!) using the characters of King of the Hill (no wonder it was on for years!):

“You know, not all boys are like Boomhauer, only looking to date as many women as possible. And not all are like Bill, clinging desperately to the memory of his only love who ditched him. We parents of boys are trying to raise our sons to be like Hank, faithful to his wife and be respectful to other women.  I can’t help it if your daughter has only met boys like Dale!”