Once a Month, This Mom Makes Her 6-Year Old Son Take Her on a Date

Nikkole Paulun would like for her 6-year old son to learn how to treat women respectfully, particularly while dating. So once a month, the boy has take his mother on a date. He has to demonstrate formal manners, such as holding doors for her, as well as pay for dinner for both of them. Paulun writes:

Once a month my 6 year old son takes me out on a dinner date. He opens doors for me, pulls out my chair, talks about his day & asks me how mine was, pays the bill with money he earned by doing chores, and even tips the waiter/waitress. By doing this I am teaching him how to treat a lady & how to take her on a proper date. How to show that he respects the woman he loves (right now that would be mommy). We put our phone and iPad away (except to take this photo) and sit and talk to each other about our days, things we want to do, etc. I'm teaching him proper table manners and that it's rude to sit on your phone on a date with your mom or with anyone else. He learns the value of money and how to manage it. He learns how to do math as we add up what we want and make sure we have 15% of it to leave for a tip. Yes he is young but I believe this is something he should learn now. It's never too early to teach your child how to properly respect others, especially women. As a woman who has been abused & treated like crap in the past, it's extremely important to me that I teach my son how to show respect. Too many men these days have no idea how to treat women or how to take them on a nice date. It's nice to know my son won't be one of them.

Do you think Paulun's approach is a good idea?

even though I might disagree with the specific things she teaches about how a date should go, I think the general approach is Fantastic!! Put kids in these adult situations, and spend time teaching them different roles. So good.

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Teaching her son that "respecting women" means "spending money". Courtesy, kindness, responsibility, empathy, etc. can all be taught, and learned, without throwing money at a fellow human.

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Pity that it takes situations outside the home to teach this lesson.

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It's a fun time for them, and he's learning lots of great stuff. Pretty neat. I hope she does the same with her daughter. Any experience can be a learning experience, and children need to learn how to act in public, how to use good manners, and how to deal with money. I did all these things with my kids, except calling it a "date." She does that because it sounds like there's not a male role model in the home. I bet it makes the 6-year-old feel really grown up for a while.

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Men and women are equal and should be treated with equal respect. Good manners should apply to men as well as women. What she is learning him is to treat women differently than men, and that is the same mechanism that made someone hurt her in the past. It does not matter if she teaches him to put women on pedestals or to think they are inferior, it is an unnatural archaic discrepancy.

Also, a 6yo has not fully developed empathy yet, and for me treating other well is in big part an empathy action. http://psychcentral.com/lib/how-children-develop-empathy/

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One of my daughters was taken out on a first date by a boy raised like this. It freaked her out so much that she wouldn't go on a second date with the boy, whom she truly did like but it was like the Rubicon had been crossed and so he wasn't willing to be "just a friend" or step back at all, and there was no way she would continue being a "girlfriend" in that scenario. It was all rigid gender roles, even when it made no practical sense; for example, he insisted on taking 2 hours of public transportation (3 changes of vehicle) each way to get to the restaurant because he didn't have access to a car and wouldn't allow us to drive him instead. Which I had to do anyway, to get her there. WTH? Gave her a rose at the table, wore a suit, the whole nine yards. It felt like she was being interviewed for the job of girlfriend, and she would have to stay in the role of "girl" so that he could be the "boy". Mutual respect and interest don't work that way. If he had just taken her to a movie or a cafe and allowed the first date to be casual, they'd probably still be going out. The point of good manners is to respect and support other people, not follow etiquette rules from the 19th century.

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Let me guess, this kids dad left her and she wants her son to be a true "man". She gives him the money, and has him spend it on her. He is 6 years old, some kids that age can't even share toys with other kids. Come on, she needs to grow up and learn to get a boyfriend

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[Commented deleted by John Farrier. Ron, this isn't the place to post content like that.]

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