The Age Gender Gap

May is Prom month for high school students. Juniors celebrate their final weeks as underclassmen and look forward to their senior year. Seniors celebrate their final weeks of high school and look forward to life beyond high school. And a large number of freshmen and sophomores join in the celebration as dates. And it is here that we find a huge gender disparity. Nearly all the younger dates are girls. According Philip, only one freshman guy at Hermes High School was even asked to the Prom, and the guy in question turned down the older girl’s invitation.

As the spring weeks moved forward, Philip’s female classmates began posting Facebook comments about going to Prom, buying their dresses and scheduling make-up and photo appointments. The comments were followed closely by actual photographs of these classmates posing at various stages of the process with each other and with their older dates, culminating in them all wearing formal attire. And within a few days after Prom, many of Philip’s female classmates disclosed they were in official relationships with their older Prom dates. Formspring then provided the venue where an endless stream of questions about these girls’ sexual activity were first rebuffed and then answered.

In stark contrast, Philip is still saving his first kiss for someone special. At this age, the girls on average have experienced significantly more “relationship firsts” than their guy counterparts: First dates, first boyfriends, first break-ups, first kisses, first Proms, as well as plenty of “first” sexual milestones.

As a parent, I am in no rush to see Philip chalk up a bunch of these “firsts” at such a young age. But it is becoming painfully clear to me that Chloe’s freshman year of high school will be fraught with much more danger as well pressure to enter into “firsts” than Philip has experienced during his freshman year. And it is simply because Chloe is a girl. For teenagers, there is an age gender gap, and there always has been.

For Philip, the age gender gap played out effectively in his favor for the first time one recent Saturday evening. He hosted a teen social at our home that was arguably the best one yet. Its success came as a pleasant surprise.

Philip and Chloe were both at an unrelated early evening event on a Saturday where a bunch of kids they knew were in attendance. Chloe was actually the one to have the idea. “Can Philip and I invite our friends back to our house for a teen social? I thought we could rent the movie, Push.”

“Check with your brother, but sure. It sounds like a good idea,” I answered. An hour later, there were eight kids ranging from Chloe’s age to Philip’s age at our house. We simply brought out soda and popcorn we already had. Amazon.com’s instant movie service allowed us to rent Push for just a few dollars.

Philip was joined, by two other fifteen-year-old freshman guys: His best friend Joshua and another guy named Kevin. Then there were three thirteen-year-old girls: Joshua’s sister Debbie, Debbie’s best friend Katie, and our family friend Ashley. Chloe was joined by Joshua’s youngest sister Abby who was only six months older than Chloe.

We had been observing a relationship developing between Debbie and Kevin for several weeks. Things solidified as Kevin and Debbie sat close with Kevin’s arm wrapped fondly around Debbie’s shoulder. According to Chloe, the two kissed some time at the end of the evening when no adult was there to witness the event. Kevin later told me it was their first shared kiss.

What I think made the evening so enjoyable for everyone was that the guys were not feeling inferior to the girls, and the girls were clearly enjoying the mostly respectful attention from the older guys. The one possible exception might have been Joshua who was more interested in gaining Philip’s attention than the attention of either Katie, Ashley or his sister.

When the movie was over and we were waiting for rides to arrive, the guys got on their hands and knees to begin forming a pyramid for my camera. Philip was in the middle. Katie climbed on top of Philip and Kevin. Debbie climbed on top of Philip and her brother. Ashlee and Chloe helped Abby up to top off the pyramid.

While his girl peers were posting very grown-up looking Prom photos to Facebook, Philip’s image appeared on Facebook at the base of a very not-grown-up looking pyramid. For Philip, the age gender gap is keeping him young for just a little bit longer.

Commercial Teen Dance Events

Bubonic is the name that was given to the dreaded plague that ravaged western civilization during the Dark Ages. It is also the name that was given to a teen dance club that operated in the 1980s not far from where I grew up. I knew The Bubonic mostly by reputation. I had a reasonably close friend who went regularly. It was housed in an otherwise unused warehouse at a light industrial park. The music was punk and the more raucous new wave styles of the time. My reasonably close friend said he went there to slam dance.

Once I had access to my own car, my curiosity about The Bubonic needed to be satisfied. My best friend and I dressed in faded blue jeans, un-tucked button-up shirts and sneakers. We parked easily enough and could hear the music emanating from the warehouse building with the clarity and volume going up each time the door opened. But then we saw some of the other guests for the evening and we began to seriously question our attire. A guy and a girl strolled past. Each had long, spiked jet black hair and pale skin. They were each wearing a metal-studded black leather jacket, a tight white t-shirt, black pants and black boots. The girl’s boots had high heels. The girl had put on black lipstick and black nail polish. She had large metal earrings that matched the metal studs on her jacket. The guy had a chain metal choker necklace. Behind them were two slightly smaller guys wearing similar attire, except they wore black vests instead of leather jackets.

Between our realization that our attire was completely wrong, rumors of fights and a general sense of uncertainty, my best friend and I decided not to even attempt to enter The Bubonic that evening. And we never went back for another try. Although it was a commercial venture, we did not get the impression The Bubonic was safe. And we were probably right. We had heard there were bouncers. But bouncers didn’t sound like security to us. Bouncers seemed like people tasked to protect the club and not the guests at the club. Besides the fights, there were almost certainly drug deals happening. Part of the so-called fun associated with The Bubonic was the sense of danger. But my best friend and I had a low tolerance for danger.

When looking at teen partying, the world has evolved significantly since the 1980s. In some ways things have gotten worse and in some ways things have gotten better. With a whole new generation of controlled substances flooding the black market, the underground teen parties have gotten much more sinister and much more dangerous. But I am finding myself very optimistic about the commercial events available to this generation of teens.

Club Avalanche is a commercial enterprise that sponsors regional teen dance parties throughout the year. The parties are held at various commercial night clubs converted for teen use during the evening in question. The bar is re-stocked with strictly non-alcoholic beverages. A professional security service trained in teen management patrols the club throughout the party and enforces the club’s zero-tolerance policies. Event dates, hours, locations, themes, dress codes and even the rules of etiquette are clearly communicated online for both parents and teens to see. Valid identification proving one is fourteen to eighteen years of age is required for entrance that also involves a search. A male security guard searches the guys and a female security guard searches the girls. No contraband gets past the doors.

As I read the parent material for Club Avalanche, I am beginning to think their events are even safer than the handful of school dances that are run by teachers and volunteer parents at Hermes High School and the other schools in the community. Although Club Avalanche ‘s admissions price is more than double what a school dance costs, I would expect a higher quality experience for the teens who attend: Better sound, better lights, an actual dance floor, adequate seating and a strict “no-in-and-out” policy enforced by trained security personnel. Additionally, their events last a full four hours compared to the two and a half hour high school dances.

Lastly, Club Avalanche has an effective marketing machine. Nothing ruins a teen event more than low attendance. Club Avalanche leverages a website, Facebook, and MySpace pages, text messaging, email and old-fashioned word-of-mouth with cool graphics and regularly updated, concise communication. Their events wind up well attended by the kind of kids who really want to dance and are happy to go somewhere new and even meet and dance with people they haven’t met before in an environment that doesn’t allure them with drugs and alcohol.

Reflecting on Teen Hookups

I was sixteen. Leona was seventeen. Leona was one of my friend Janine’s best friends. On the day I met Leona, the three of us joined around twenty-five other teens on a trip to the regional Six Flags theme park. The three of us spent the entire day together in May of my sophomore year of high school. Janine and Leona were juniors. Janine went to my school. Leona went to Janine’s old school and I had never met Leona before.

On the two hour drive to Six Flags, Janine, Leona and I shared a wide seat in one of the vans taking us to the theme park. I got to know Leona over a long animated conversation during which it became clear to me that Leona and I shared the same kind of humor that Janine particularly appreciated. Janine was laughing during almost the entire ride sandwiched in the middle of the seat between me and Leona.

As we walked into the theme park, Janine and Leona shared some private words they whispered back and forth to one another. Then at the very first theme park ride, Janine moved forward past Leona, effectively changing the seating order. The significance was not lost on me. Janine got in first, followed by Leona and I squeezed in last. I put my arm around Leona’s shoulders. She made herself comfortable leaning into my side before she looked at me and said, “I have a boyfriend. OK?”

It is possible Leona was making a weak attempt at saying no. But I interpreted her words to mean that whatever was going to happen between us that day would last only that day. And in the last remaining seconds before the first ride started, I decided to accept Leona’s terms. “That’s alright,” I replied and I squeezed her just a little tighter.

Leona and I spent the rest of the day ostentatiously close to one another under Janine’s non-judgmental eye. The closest thing we had to privacy took place in a photo booth after we ate lunch. Leona reminded me she had a boyfriend and I reiterated that I accepted that fact. And then we shared our first kiss. The kissing resumed during the ride home. We sat in the back seat of a station wagon. A parent we didn’t know was driving. Leona sat in the middle between me and Janine. Janine pretended to sleep. Leona reminded me she had a boyfriend one last time and I reiterated that I accepted that fact. We then spent the bulk of the two hour drive home slouched in one another’s arms kissing. After that day, I neither saw nor spoke to Leona again. Every once in a while I would ask Janine about Leona and Janine would merely tell me that Leona was doing fine.

Now I am the parent of a teenage boy and a somewhat soon-to-be teenage girl. I have become aware that hookups are very common among high school students. By hookups, I mean kissing or more between two people who are not in a committed relationship. Decades ago, Leona and I kept our hookup tame; we only kissed. But Philip has peers at Hermes High School who not only hook up frequently, but also sometimes do much more than kiss during their hookups. At this age, it is mainly the girls hooking up with older guys.

From my adult and parent’s perspective, I do not like teen hookups. I would like to tell Philip and Chloe that I carry a great sense of guilt over what transpired between me and Leona that day decades ago. But that would be a lie, and I do not ever lie to them. Instead, how I feel is much more complicated. I have two key regrets about how I handled relationships in general at that age. If I had handled relationships differently, my day with Leona would have played out much differently.

1. I regret that I did not apply myself to developing good relationship skills. Instead, I applied myself to developing my charm. The result was that I became very good at attracting a girlfriend (or the rare hookup like Leona). But I was not capable of sustaining my relationships or even ending them in an emotionally healthy manner. And so the ultimate outcome was a lot of avoidable heartache and fewer happy memories for both me and the teenage girls in my life at the time.

2. I regret that I did not have a clear set of rules regarding romance and intimacy. It was only when I reached college that I set my own rules for what I would permit myself to do outside a committed relationship, what I would do only within the confines of a committed relationship and what I would wait for until I was married. Once I made those rules for myself, kissing was something I did only inside the confines of a committed relationship. Today, I hope Philip and Chloe will decide to adopt rules similar to those I set for myself in college.

With the recent revelation about Erica’s hookup behavior, I find Erica’s words to Philip early in the year about her poor relationship skills quite haunting. Many teens today take the same naïve and unplanned approach relationships that I did decades ago. And many teens like Erica take my naïve approach much further. Teen hookups won’t go away and they won’t be tamed. But I don’t see teen hookups as being universal either. I know that there are also many teens among Philip’s peers who are determined to pursue their relationships in a mature and emotionally healthy manner. Such teens are willing to forego the short term pleasures of a teen romance or hookup in order to stay on course with their more long term goals and values.

Good relationship skills and a sense of direction can be developed over the course of adolescence in step with the development of charm and desire. That is the way I am raising Philip and Chloe. And I know many of my parent peers are giving similar instructions about relationships to their kids. But with the freedoms of adulthood so close on the horizon, this is not something parents can simply control. It is up to our teens to decide for themselves.

Fewer Close Kept Secrets and Less Room for Doubt

Rumors and the juvenile urge to acknowledge private matters to less than trustworthy peers has been a well-observed adolescent phenomenon. But today that phenomenon has crashed head on into one of the digital age’s commonly spoken proverbs: What happens on the internet stays on the internet.

Philip and his friend Vienna had suffered personal violation on formspring only a handful of days earlier. Philip and Vienna recovered well and they recovered quickly. Erica suffered a much greater violation—one to her personal privacy—and it is unlikely she will recover so quickly, so easily or so completely.

Initially, Erica’s peers probably paid little attention to the increasing banter on Erica’s formspring account asking her, “Is it true you are no longer a virgin?” Teenage girls get asked no shortage of rude and personal questions in this venue. The virgin question was tame by comparison. But then one day it seems that Erica caved into mounting social pressure she was getting online and offline to confirm the rumors.

“I regret it, but yeah,” was her first response to confirm the rumors. It was followed by multiple affirmative responses as if she was cleaning out a backlog of questions on her formspring queue that she had left unanswered for a while. At first one might have concluded that Erica’s older sister was playing a prank. But time proved otherwise. Erica never erased her answers. Instead on the following day, she began to answer a next wave of questions that pressed for details. It did not take much intelligence to understand the basics of what had happened.

Erica had indeed relinquished her virginity. Since this was a hookup and not a long term boyfriend, the guy had little motivation to keep Erica’s secret. He probably bragged at least to his closest friends. As the extremely popular girl, Erica would be a prize in the eyes of most high school guys who merely got the opportunity to spend a little time kissing her. Erica’s first time would be the prize of all prizes. He told some friends, at least one of them leaked the story to others and then the rumors spread like fire.

Eventually the direct questions and the ones written to her on formspring reached critical mass and Erica felt compelled to answer. Erica claims it was voluntary, even through she regrets it. As a parent, I wonder whether or not she was knowingly or unknowingly under the influence of Ecstasy or another illegal substance that would make her uncharacteristically agreeable to sex. The thought makes me cringe. That level of detail was not disclosed. So far, Erica has also resisted the many formspring questions that directly ask her with whom she shared her first time. Again I cringe at the likely scenario that it was someone much older and possibly even someone above the age for which state laws would make this a statutory rape. Erica at age fourteen was very, very young.

When I was in high school, I would catch rumors of girls relinquishing their virginity. Sometimes these rumors came with details and sometimes they did not. It was often with a much older guy. As I got older, more and more of the guys I knew would recite both vague and detailed stories of their supposed first experience, best experience or most recent experience. But the girl in question was never named to me. And no girl ever admitted or shared the details of her first experience with me. An admission like Erica’s highly public and highly authenticated admission on formspring is unique to this generation, but it is probably all of the sudden quite common.

With room for doubt only left regarding the minor details Erica still withholds, the rumors will continue while the main facts can no longer be denied. What happens on the internet stays on the internet. And what stays on the internet affects the offline world. It will no doubt affect Erica’s offline world. But what happens to Erica in the real world is a story that deserves its own post.

Great Outcome, But Did I Over-Parent?

Perhaps this is a normal part of parenting a teen. But it seems like more and more often, I am finding myself undecided as to whether I am over-parenting. I still question whether or not I should have taken Philip to see his first R-Rated movie at age fourteen. I still question the degree to which I intervened in how Philip carried out his relationship and eventual breakup with Layla. And now, I question how much I intervened helping Philip to nail down his first summer job.

Summer is difficult for fifteen-year-olds. Fifteen-year-olds are too old for traditional summer camp, but not old enough for most jobs. And it is already difficult for teens to nail down gainful summer employment. Back when I was fifteen, I worked for minimum wage as a weekend pool attendant. That was a frustrating summer. I didn’t even work every weekend. The following summer when I was sixteen was even more frustrating because I was unemployed. I was hoping Philip would enjoy something better.

Philip had one huge advantage. He did not need any more income. He already commanded a high hourly wage refereeing. That meant he could work for free as an intern somewhere. Rather than going through the usual channels like the vocations office at Hermes High School, I decided to get creative. I thought about Philip’s actual skills and abilities and how he could actually deliver value in a business context.

I found my creative solution in the heart of leading-edge business creativity: An online advertising agency. The advertising agency was conveniently located a short walk from one of the city bus stops in Santa Carla. I knew the CEO but could not say I was on the best terms with him. This was going to be interesting, and it was going to be fun.

I first pitched the idea to Philip. In exchange for the chance to do interesting and relevant work during the summer, he would be willing to work for free or at most a modest stipend. The idea was simple. He would research, identify and at least partially qualify relevant youth-oriented websites for the agency’s clients to potentially place online advertisements. Philip liked the idea. But the hard part was ahead.

Next I contacted the CEO. Since the CEO was an avid user of online tools, I was able to contact him via instant messenger. “Hi Ken. Do you have a minute? I have a business idea that might have huge appeal.” When he responded favorably, I continued with my pitch. “My son is an honors student at Hermes High School. He earns $15 - $25 per hour refereeing, so he doesn’t need to earn any additional money this summer. He’s willing to work for free or for only a modest stipend in order to gain meaningful experience in a summer internship. We were thinking he could assist your advertising executives by doing research on the internet to identify high-traffic, youth-oriented sites on which to place advertisements for your clients.”

“Hmmm,” Ken typed back to me on the instant messenger. “Let me think about it as well as run the idea by a couple of my account managers. Give me until next Tuesday. Then message me again.” We had passed the first screen. When Tuesday came along, Ken agreed to schedule an interview for Philip. We scheduled it during a business day when Philip was on his Spring break. Philip dressed in the jacket, oxford cloth shirt, dress pants and dress shoes we had bought for him to wear for dances just three and a half months earlier. The pants were already so tight he could barely button them around his waist. I had shown Philip the advertising agency’s website and had explained how to handle an interview.

The agency was doing better than it had been the last time I had visited. They were in a new office that sported bright wall paint in the company’s color on the North and South facing walls. There were high ceilings and fifteen to twenty, seven foot trees in boulder-sized pots. Most of the staff members were in their twenties or early-thirties. The exceptions were Ken and CFO. In short, the place was hip – or whatever word Philip would use to mean hip. A recently hired account executive had been scheduled to practice his corporate presentation to his manager. Ken had Philip sit in on the presentation to determine whether or not Philip could grasp the company’s business model.

Philip passed their final screen and was offered an internship. It was a big score in his mind and in my mind. I expect Philip will have fun and will learn a lot. He’ll also get up to take up to two weeks off, so that his summer won’t be all work. Philip will need to regularly referee on weekends in order to maintain his desired teen lifestyle. But as a package it looks good. Still, I wonder if I over-parented. The internship was my brain-child, not his. I hope I modeled going off the beaten path rather than simply doing it for him. Time will tell. At this point in Philip’s life, when it comes to his success in life I am going to err in the direction of over-parenting.

Shutting Down the Cyber-Bully

For two months now, Philip and Vienna have been flirting but they are not even close to being in an official relationship. A small number of their peers know or suspect that it was Vienna who sent the anonymous rose and card to Philip at school the Friday before Valentine’s Day. Regardless of whether their friendship develops into a romance, Philip highly values Vienna’s friendship, admiration and respect.

On a recent Friday, Philip and Vienna were in PE class playing softball. Philip hit a line drive squarely into Vienna’s ankle. Knowing my son gets particularly upset when he hurts somebody, it is almost certain that Philip apologized far too profusely to the point where Vienna started to get visibly embarrassed and some of their peers in PE probably even started snickering among themselves. Still, it should have been an isolated event of little long term consequence.

But on that Sunday afternoon, Philip took a look at Vienna’s formspring page. Formspring has gotten quite a lot of media attention lately on the topic of cyber-bullying. Some blame posts on formspring as what finally drove a promising teenage girl to commit suicide. Whether or not one believes formspring encourages the practice of cyber-bullying, it is certainly a good venue to practice it. The reason is formspring allows people to anonymously post messages directed to particular individuals. And despite the frequent rude postings, many teens including Vienna love their formspring accounts.

And so on Sunday, Philip saw a conversation that began with an anonymous party apologizing for hitting Vienna in the ankle during PE. Philip found it strange and disconcerting that someone was pretending to be him, especially since Vienna seemed annoyed “We’re good. PLEASE stop apologizing.” But then it got worse.

The pretender continued the dialog and made Philip look like an insensitive idiot by writing “Sure. Sorry.” With each new post from the pretender, he or she was making Philip appear more and more invasive. In turn, Vienna’s responses indicated she was getting progressively agitated and uncomfortable with the exchange. The pretender did an amazing job imitating the way Philip talks, although the pretender completely failed at imitating how Philip writes online. Eventually Vienna told the pretender not to speak to her. But the pretender kept pushing for two more posts that painted Philip as desperate to elicit a friendly response from Vienna without any respect for her wish to be left alone.

Philip was understandably horrified. He wanted to correct things with Vienna, but he also wanted to show respect for her request not to speak with her. He went into school Monday quite upset about the situation and not knowing what to do. But his concerns were soon put to rest.

Early in the day, Nancy approached Philip and asked him if he had seen Vienna’s formspring page. Philip lied and said no. Nancy then went on to explain that someone had been pretending to be Philip on Vienna’s formspring account and had gotten rude. Nancy told Philip that Vienna and her friends knew it was not Philip and that they had a reasonably good idea who was actually harassing Vienna as well as trying to make Philip look like a creep. In short, Vienna and her friends didn’t want Philip to worry about the matter in the slightest. On Monday after school, Philip and Vienna shared a brief online chat using Facebook’s instant messenger. Everything was cool. If anything, the event on formspring had brought the two one step closer. Vienna had clearly forgotten how embarrassed she had felt in PE.

Philip and Vienna’s experience demonstrates that teens are often wiser than we might expect. They are not always fooled or intimidated by cyber-bullies. But it also demonstrates that cyber-bullying is very much alive and well on the internet. For those who are less socially adept and confident, those facing a particularly stressful time in life, as well as those needing medical intervention to treat depression or anxiety, cyber-bullying can be the cause of great hurt, misunderstanding and worry. But for the majority of kids, I believe there is no need to panic. Under normal circumstances, a teen’s reputation is established in day-to-day interaction. That reputation is not likely to be suddenly be torn down by a cyber-bully, not even one crafty enough to imitate the finer details of Philip’s speaking mannerisms.

A Fashion Makeover for a Teenage Guy

Philip has grown at least four inches in a very short period of time. He’s started shaving. And the muscles in his arms are rapidly catching up to his six-pack abdomen. Earlier in the year, Philip looked decidedly grunge with jeans, sneakers, sunglasses, a t-shirt and an unzipped hooded, zip-up sweatshirt falling off one or both of his shoulders. But what was decidedly grunge in September was looking boyish by January and beginning to even look effeminate by late February. At least that was the way I was seeing Philip’s standard attire appear as the body underneath went through such a rapid change in such a short period of time. The jeans, sneakers and even the sunglasses were fine. It was how he was layering his upper body that no longer looked right to me.

But Philip is no longer the child whose parents can dress him as they choose. A father or a mother can only influence such choices at this point. Control over my son’s attire would be absurd. I know it. And Philip knows it. Philip likes his growing independence as he should. And Philip, like most teenagers, is willing to defend his growing independence. In fact, those parents who insist on controlling such trivial aspects of a young adolescent’s life meet stern resistance and sometimes even rebellion. It is the stage in life in which carving out one’s independence is essential to emotional health and personal development. But I was still convinced Philip’s attire was looking more effeminate as the body beneath shed the last of what resembled a middle-school boy. And maybe he was at least wondering if I wasn’t the only person who was rapidly losing admiration for his attire of choice.

I knew I couldn’t make Philip change. But I did succeed in getting him to explore. And as long as I did not require him to change and as long as I gave him a broad range of options, he was willing to entertain my idea of updating his wardrobe. I showed him images online during the week and then took him to the mall on Saturday. The first store we visited was his first choice as opposed to my first choice. But I was just fine with that. The store catered to a variety of youthful grunge-like styles. At first, we simply needed to find his size which turned out to be medium. He brought one style of shirt to the dressing room in medium and small sizes. Once he had decided upon medium, I brought him one shirt after another to try on. All were button-up. He put them on over his dark t-shirt the same way he had put the hooded sweatshirt over his t-shirts. But somehow this looked better. The button-up shirts did not effeminately slide off his shoulder and they hugged his torso more evenly.

Philip rejected most shirts quickly. About half of them he did not even want to try on. But that was consistent with my unwillingness to propose perhaps half the styles in the store. The colors just did not look right, at least on Philip. Eventually Philip settled on a plain white button up and two with reddish cross patterns. After that success at his first choice store, I took Philip to a more upscale store that offered similar styles to the shirts he selected. He tried on about six more shirts at that store and picked two for purchase. One had a grey and black cross pattern. The other was mostly white with an elegant dark blue cross pattern. This last shirt proved his favorite. He picked out one more with a reddish-brown cross pattern, but its price tag was more than the other two shirts combined, so he got his father’s one veto of the day. While waiting to pay, Philip tried out the store’s colognes and particularly liked one of them. We added a bottle of the cologne to our purchases and nearly called it a day.

The last stop was at the health store. There we bought a protein drink to help him build muscle mass. And that was the end of our makeover shopping trip. I would call it a partial success. Philip is drinking his protein drink each day after lacrosse practice. He put on four sprays of the cologne for the final dance of the school year at Hermes High School. He wears the shirt with the dark blue cross pattern two days per week, one of the reddish cross patterns one day a week and the least effeminate of his hooded zip-up sweatshirts the other two days. I’m reasonably satisfied with the improvement. We’ll see how long it takes for him to wear the plain white or the grey and black shirt to school, if ever. And if he doesn’t, how different is Philip from his father, anyway?