One of my good friends posted this photo and as I read it, I had this HUGE epiphany that I’d like to share here.
I love this! This was how I intuitively parented my Kaitlyn. It was a HUGE controversy in my family because my parents – her grandparents – and my grandparents – her great-grandparents – continually insisted that she hug and kiss them even when she said no.
When she was three, I finally got good and angry about the ongoing battle and said aloud to my parents, “Do you realize that by you insisting that she hug and kiss you when she does not want to and she is saying no and you continue to push her, that you are actually grooming her to be raped?” None of them liked that insinuation and they had a really hard time accepting it, but they sure never pushed again after that. I could see how uncomfortable they were with the thought that she wouldn’t want to hug them – they are all good people, so they couldn’t figure out why she’d say no. It made them look at themselves and their expectations of others.
As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I miss those days – when I could be the warrior queen and stand in front of her and shut up everyone and MAKE THEM honor her because I demanded it of them. I was fierce in my teaching of myself and those around her because I wanted more for her than I had… I wanted her to be empowered from birth, to never be forced to let go of her magic to fit in, and to be able to choose for herself and say no when things felt out of alignment with her. I didn’t have that, so I gave it to her. For the record, no adult in my world “forced” any of that upon me – other than hugging the people I was “supposed to hug” even when I didn’t want to (a horrifying memory of being made to hug my paternal grandfather creeps in here; that man terrified me). It was a societal expectation that I picked up on and conformed to.
I miss those days when she was so young that she needed an example of that warrior queen standing up for her so she could know that she could do that for herself one day. She does that for herself now and it is my job to stand back and watch her figure out how to deal with older adults who still want her to conform. She is awesome at standing her ground, though. And I feel happy about that.
And my realization in this writing is this… when it was HER I was standing to protect, I was FULLY committed. Every. Single. Time. There was no wavering. Ever. I stood up. I stood solid. I did not stop until “they” backed off. My sadness is that I didn’t do that for myself for most of my life. My joy is… I do it regularly now.