The Overblown Underwear Incident

I used to loathe the saying "boys will be boys." I thought it was used to excuse poor behavior. Oh, Johnny beat up Joey? Well, boys will be boys! Oh, Johnny is pressuring Janey for intimacy? Well, boys will be boys! And on and on ad nauseam.

Yesterday, Jacob got in trouble at day camp. When I walked into the room, he shuffled over and mumbled something. After a few tries, I finally managed to understand him. "I took out my underwear and sniffed it." The camp counselor, an older woman, walked over toward me. I approached her in confusion, and asked for clarification because I had to be missing some information.

She explained that the children were waiting to change clothes after returning from the pool. A group of boys were trying to gross out a group of girls. The boys took their clean underwear out of their backpacks and sniffed it, causing no small amount of shrieking and squealing from the girls. Since the girls were "highly offended," the boys were soundly lectured and punished with a loss of recess.

It took me a few minutes to digest the story. Then, I had to stop myself from laughing. I suggested ever so tactfully that perhaps, just perhaps, the counselor had overreacted a bit. Boys sniffing clean laundry is hardly harmful behavior. Mildly inappropriate? Sure. Worthy of a dirty look? Sure. Worthy of a lost recess? Absolutely not. My criticism was not well-received, to say the very least.

At any rate, I'm sort of thinking this is an example of boys being boys and girls being girls. Boys sometimes like gross things. They sniff underwear - and not always clean underwear. Girls sometimes like to be offended. They squeal and shriek and create drama. While I think that inappropriate behavior should be corrected, I wonder about our definitions of inappropriate behavior. For that matter, I wonder about our definitions of correction!

What do you think? Will boys be boys? Is that a problem?