It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Ugh. »
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge
Because I have daughters who are precious pleasers, I spend a lot of time trying to teach them that they have rights and that they have the right to say no to anything, no matter what. At this point, the conversations like that are mostly centered around their not wanting to go to a birthday party or not wanting to have a certain friend over or something like that. They get concerned that the friend who is being rejected will feel sad or mad and I assure them that it’s ok if a friend is sad or mad, but it’s not ok for the friend to use their sadness to manipulate them into doing something they don’t want to do. (I know, I didn’t believe it either, but it turns out that it’s true.) Friends who use emotional manipulation are not good friends, but friends who are understanding even if they’re sad about your choice, those are the good friends.
Of course, I’m hoping this will translate into their teen years when the pressures they’ll face will be of much greater significance and the choices they make will be of much greater consequence. Yes, everything always comes back to sex with me. I know. Shut up. Anyway, I came across this blog post from Hugo Schwyzer, who I think is a little bit crazy, but he has some good points. It’s about how our “no means no” message is somewhat lacking and we have to teach how to interpret the no and the yes.
“…anything short of an authentic, honest, uncoerced, aroused and sober “Hell yes!” is, in the end, just a “no” in another form.”
I thought it was interesting and I wanted to share it. So read it. And then put it to use. And then teach your children how to say no *and* yes. And then teach them how to respond to no in all of its varied forms. Do it! Or don’t do it, you do have the right to say no. And I have the right to not be friends with you anymore if you don’t obey. Oh, wait…
I was just discussing this with Paul last night. I read something yesterday about how our culture still puts the responsibility of sexual assault on women and girls. We have lists of things not to do to help prevent sexual assault. We have a list of things to do in case you are being sexually assaulted. Then we have a list of things to do if we have been sexually assaulted. Though we are told that what we wear doesn’t cause sexual assault and that it is not our fault, we are certainly encouraged to down play and repress our sexuality. So I was like, how do we begin to make a change culturally? How do we really shift responsibility and put it back on men? We need to highly publicize the statistics about men who sexually assault women. We know it is about power. So why are our men feeling so powerless? Could it have something to do with the expectations society has for men to be emotionless, strong, work horses. If they don’t fit this mold, are they really men? Seems we have a whole lot of rewiring to do with our girls and boys. Who is this gender role stuff serving anyway? I mean don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging natural gender differences. Gender research has shown that girls and boys have very different patterns in brain growth and development. Hormones effect behavior and boys and girls, men and women have varying levels of hormones. But, where the whole “role” thing falls apart is when we define ourselves by anything other than what is natural to our core being. I think we really need to educate our boys about being in touch with who they really are. Attaining “manhood” in some rite of passage drinking game at age 18 or whatever is bullshit. Instead of being a “man”, be yourself. That is really, really, really hard to do be you man or woman. Lets love our boys and girls and ourselves as we all strive to attain the right to just be.
PS – I have a friend who has a six year old boy who will ask for something and then try to negotiate when she says “no.” Her response is, “I said NO and NO means NO.” I thought that was very interesting and a good idea with all kids boy or girl. Negotiating that word takes all authority away from the person saying it. That is something to think about. There is something to be said for flexibility. But what message are we saying when we say no to our children and then we let them talk us out of our position? Hmmm. I guess I have some work to do on being clear about my position BEFORE I communicate so that I am not sending an unspoken mixed signal. Maybe I need to spend more time in that place inside myself before the no’s and the yes’s to understand that better. Maybe that is something to talk with our kids about too.
Sorry this is so long. But I was just thinking about this very thing.
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