to my daughter
February 9, 2017 § 5 Comments
Tuesday someone treated you unkindly, a new harm in a recent series of unhappy events. This experience of manipulative acts of mean spirited aggression is not new.
The first time you saw a child mistreated, it was your brother. Standing up and speaking out you held everyone accountable to their words and choices. Later you would do the same for classmates when peers were unkind.
It was in elementary school that you learned telling an adult did not insure safety, sometimes it emboldened the aggressor with a language of entitlement and misunderstanding by explaining away unkindness with empty platitudes.
It happened at the playground, in the lunchroom, after school in organized activities, and in living rooms between neighbors.
Generic statements of kids will be kids and vague I’m sure they didn’t mean it. Instructions to turn the other cheek or forgive and forget. We quiet the words that call us to action because they make us uncomfortable.
I failed, too.
When other parents didn’t want to talk about bad behavior, I smiled away the harm with polite silence. Other times I named the unkindness but failed to hold other adults accountable outside our conversations. I let discomfort create a passive permissiveness, but you haven’t.
This week, in the face of unkindness, you voiced your value and insisted on respect. Even when tears threatened to fall and your voice wavered, you knew your worth and you didn’t disappear into polite silence.
You said that it’s not okay to treat others unkindly. Period.
I wish I could say that things will get better, easier, but I can only tell you that it gets harder to stand up for yourself once you settle for silence.
Love, Mom
scribblechic 
A very brave girl, and it will guide her for the future. As you said, your journey wasn’t as good one either, but you have taught her well ‘because of what ‘you’ had learnt before’. That is love Marie, regardless of the outcome, but in this instance very worthwhile 😀
We learn from one another, don’t we? It’s a wonderful thing when we can share mistakes and grow.
Sometimes childhood can be difficult. Sometimes it looking on as a parent can be difficult. I admire your daughter for speaking out.
Some days I think the secondhand experience of parenting my children’s heartache is more painful than the uncomfortable awkwardness of my own adolescence. Other days, it’s a toss up. 🙂
I hear you.