"I say this letter isn’t cute. I say it’s inappropriate."

The following picture has been gaining a lot of attention around the internet. And I for one am no entirely sure it’s for the right reasons.

This “cute” 24 step guide (it’s a work in progress), written by two 2^nd graders (8 year olds) on how to find love, is being shared around the internet and being hailed as “adorable”. And while I agree that the premise and some of the steps are beautifully naïve, something about some of those instructive steps disturb me. They disturb me a lot.

Ted Scheinman originally posted a picture of the “book” on Twitter, after his sister, who is a school teacher, shared the story of the two girls with him.

“My sister teaches languages at a school in the northeast and did not actually witness the composition of this masterpiece, but a colleague confides that the two girls (both second-graders) had finished their work about 12 minutes early and decided to write a “book” …” said Ted in an interview with The Awl.

1. First you stare at the person.

2. You get close to each other.

3. You ask for a date.

4. You go in bed and do sex

5. When you kiss you suck and lick

6. Get nacked [sic] in bed and do more sex.

7. (Blank)

8. Go dance and put your noses together.

9. (Blank)

10. Then kiss forever.

11. Take a shower together and kiss.

12. Give each other rings.

13. Go to the pool together.

14. – 24. (It’s a work in progress)

Steps 1 – 3 are fair enough, you stare at someone, you get closer to them and you get up the guts to ask them out on a date. Very much 8 year old logic. Actually, it’s very much the way it works at any age, with perhaps less obvious “staring” and more appropriate personal space boundaries.

By Step 4, things escalate quickly, when suddenly, just like that, we find ourselves in bed “doing the sex”.

Whoa, hold up, what?

Then, at Step 5, clearly the next logical step is to “kiss, suck and lick.”

Again, wait, WHAT?

What is this, a Miley Cyrus video?

But am I just being a prude?

I am very well aware that by eight years of age, children are inquisitive and aware. I myself have a somewhat curious 7 year old boy who has been known to trade kisses for ice blocks and expose himself in Art class. And while I am very careful to make sure he never feels ashamed for being sexually aware of himself and his body, he needs to understand that there will be a time and place for such things. I have a strong suspicion that if my child wrote this kind of thing in his classroom, I’d be getting a phone call to discuss “some issues”.

What do you think? Was this just an adorable ‘How To’ guide written by two very forward eight year olds? Or was there something a little off about it?