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School has taught generations of people in our country that separation by age is absolutely essential for proper socialization and the development of frienships.
Anyone who has lived with any level of self awareness for two seconds in the real world should be able to see how patently absurd such an attitude is.
You would think someone with the willingness to buck the system and homeschool their kid would perceive this even faster than the normal societally programmed individual.
And yet, I have been faced with people on my homeschool group who can type with a straight face, "I don't think too many 16 year olds would want to hang out with 12 year olds and vice versa". This came about because a 13 year old's Mother suddenly changed her girls hang out* age range from 13-16 to 12-14, so they can "make sure and do age-appropriate fun activities."
My displeasure was not well received by several mothers "grateful for this opportunity" this group presented for their daughter; yeah, well, of course, since their girls are 12 and the new age range benefits them.
I completely agree that the Mother going to the trouble to organize and host can have whatever arbitrary rules she wants. Heck, she could host cupcake decorating for only 13 year old girls who can bring a pet goose with them. That's beside the point. What caught me by surprise, was when I ran into a brick wall on the idea that frienships form from common interests, and arbitrary age ranges aren't neccessary.
Setting aside the fact that this process got my daughter excited about participating in an ongoing hangout with cool sounding activities, just to have the rug pulled out from under her at the last minute, I am still genuinely confused as to what 15 and 16 year olds are going to bring to the party that would translate to age-inappropriate, now that 12 year olds are involved.
Keep in mind, the hostesses' daughter, when 12, used to happily hang out and play games with my then 15 and 16 year olds. She was awesome. We loved her. She was one of the reasons I brought this whole clusterfuck up to S in the first place.
*I personally think girl specific/boy specific activities are weird, but we know the girl personally and realise she was having trouble specifically with some of the boys at our gaming group, so that particular limit makes some sense to us under the circumstances.
Anyone who has lived with any level of self awareness for two seconds in the real world should be able to see how patently absurd such an attitude is.
You would think someone with the willingness to buck the system and homeschool their kid would perceive this even faster than the normal societally programmed individual.
And yet, I have been faced with people on my homeschool group who can type with a straight face, "I don't think too many 16 year olds would want to hang out with 12 year olds and vice versa". This came about because a 13 year old's Mother suddenly changed her girls hang out* age range from 13-16 to 12-14, so they can "make sure and do age-appropriate fun activities."
My displeasure was not well received by several mothers "grateful for this opportunity" this group presented for their daughter; yeah, well, of course, since their girls are 12 and the new age range benefits them.
I completely agree that the Mother going to the trouble to organize and host can have whatever arbitrary rules she wants. Heck, she could host cupcake decorating for only 13 year old girls who can bring a pet goose with them. That's beside the point. What caught me by surprise, was when I ran into a brick wall on the idea that frienships form from common interests, and arbitrary age ranges aren't neccessary.
Setting aside the fact that this process got my daughter excited about participating in an ongoing hangout with cool sounding activities, just to have the rug pulled out from under her at the last minute, I am still genuinely confused as to what 15 and 16 year olds are going to bring to the party that would translate to age-inappropriate, now that 12 year olds are involved.
Keep in mind, the hostesses' daughter, when 12, used to happily hang out and play games with my then 15 and 16 year olds. She was awesome. We loved her. She was one of the reasons I brought this whole clusterfuck up to S in the first place.
*I personally think girl specific/boy specific activities are weird, but we know the girl personally and realise she was having trouble specifically with some of the boys at our gaming group, so that particular limit makes some sense to us under the circumstances.
