Middle School Socials

Philip began sixth grade at Hermes Middle School in September of 2006. The following weekend on the sidelines of the soccer fields Saturday and after church Sunday, the parents were trading stories about the onset of Middle School life. Raul, one of Philip’s best friends had only the following to say to his father after his first day of Middle School, and it has stuck in my head ever since.

“Nobody DOES anything at lunch. Everybody just TALKS.”

Without realizing, Raul had observed a tectonic shift in the social dynamics of his peer group. They no longer wanted playmates. They wanted friends. And friends were going to mean everything—literally making or breaking one’s happiness—for the foreseeable future.

Philip went to his first Middle School Social in October 2006. It was held at Jocelyn’s house. I dropped Philip off to a scene of perhaps fifteen sixth through eighth graders mingling in the driveway and in the couch-filled garage. I could hear music playing in the garage, and I could see four adults chaperoning the scene. I watched Philip dissolve into the crowd and went home only to return less than two hours later to pick him up. He came to the car as I was parking and got in right away. “Are you done or do you want to stay longer?” I asked.

“It’s over. Everybody is leaving. I’m ready to go home.”

“So how was it?” I asked.

“It was great. We had a burping contest and they voted me the winner.”

And so it has continued: Burping contests, eating contests, scavenger hunts, etc. Last year their favorite activity was a game called Stupid Ninja. This October we found ourselves again dropping Philip off at Jocelyn’s house. Except this time there was no sign of Jocelyn. Jocelyn was now in High School and her younger sister Claire, a seventh-grader, had assumed the role of hostess. That evening I intentionally arrived early to get a glimpse of what to expect for the day when our home would be the Middle School frat house.

I parked down the street, walked up and stood behind a parked minivan in the driveway. One of the adults approached and asked me who I was picking up. I told her I was Philip’s dad but that I was in no hurry to pick him up. We chatted while the kids ran about tossing bean bags, or hanging out in small circles. An occasional exclamation or burst of laughter would force one of us to repeat something.

Another minivan pulled up and the automatic door opened. A girl who was probably in sixth grade ran past and leapt into the car. “Jamie, where are your shoes?”

With an “Oh - I forgot” to her mother, Jamie bounced back out of the minivan to get her shoes. Soon we heard her enlisting friends to help her find her shoes and that eventually grew into a flurry of activity to find Jamie’s shoes. But there was no success. Eventually her mother called. “Don’t worry about your shoes, Jamie. I’ll get them from Claire’s mother tomorrow.” Jamie returned to her mother’s minivan with a giddiness and elation that reminded me just a bit of Philip two years prior.

We hosted our first Middle School social earlier this month. We kept it a little tamer than Jocelyn and Claire’s parents did. We had just nine Middle School kids: six boys and three girls. I had two of the dads with me to chaperone. We had plenty of snack food and soda. We cooked them hamburgers, cheeseburgers and hot dogs for dinner and gave them chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We had an ice-breaker at the beginning to ensure all the kids met and then we showed them a movie.

But they effectively didn’t see the movie. One boy after another began heckling the movie for whatever reason popped into his head. Each boy was trying to outdo the other with a greater level of boldness and wit. The girls would selectively reward the boys with laughter which ensured the boys would continue their heckling. In the end, all they remembered of the movie were the scenes that were best heckled, along with the exact words and name of the boy who’d delivered the superlatively humorous comment.

Today, if you asked one of the kids about the evening at our home, the kid would probably say the movie stunk and his or her burger or hot dog was overcooked but otherwise the evening was a blast … even if they didn’t play Stupid Ninja.