#beyond the hashtag
She is head tipped back, crowned in colorful barrettes, odd angles. Flairs of dark hair fan and whimsy, she is an angel, carefree, freely flying. She swings back to me sitting upright, her heels in cannonball ready position, her hands gripping the chains at each side, she leverages her climb up and up.
And even though I can’t see her face, I know it’s pulled into a blunt and determined expression. She pumps higher and beyond the natural limits of the structure, to a height most others won’t achieve, and just after releasing the chains she is airborne at the peak of her arc, she hovers, as if droning the landscape below, her body shape a proper seated position, sans chair.
Then, her legs lengthen, her spine arches skyward, and her arms lift and steady her like wings. In the air she sails until the whump of a pay dirt landing, and a roll. She cheers.
She stands up before brushing herself off, turns and reaches for the aftermath, the wobbling, twisting, swinging chains, and goes again.
This was what I had hoped to pass along to my daughters, to all my children — abandon and wonder, flight, the creative relationship to the natural world, random grace coupled always, with a return home to safety.
Indeed, I fell short. I had not provided a rigid enough check-in system. I had not assured them, demanded that they pay attention to their boundaries.
I could have written out rules. I could have explicitly, repeatedly, yearly, monthly, daily, sat them down, as they grew and grew, and told them how danger could hide in mysterious places.
My daughters and I have climbed mountains together. We have trekked through dense forest trails and pilgrimaged in Spanish countrysides, farmlands, and roads through cobblestoned villages. We have identical tattoos, several times over, inked unity on our arms, our ribs, and our hands. We have snorkeled in the southern hemisphere, traveling in water with our elbows linked, like snakes twinning, or eels gliding in profound deep-water silence.
We are recipe troubleshooters, menu creators, feasters. We sleep three in a bed and tag each other’s slumberous snores, dream-laughters. We farewell our pets and salvage our hearts and sorrows on cold tile floors of animal hospitals.
These are the easy steps, the payoffs, the poetries of reward I receive from my children.
But I didn’t keep dangers away, did I? It can disguise itself, like a trickster. The best of people, the prettiest on paper friends from families firm in respect and generosity can fool you. Forget about what the stranger might do.
And I wasn’t clear. I never sat my babies down and said, ‘even someone you know well, and admire and like and trust may betray you, or hurt you, or take advantage of you.’ I didn’t say those things to them because I hadn’t worked it out for myself yet; I still struggled with boundaries.
My daughters play well. They run faster than wind, they study and stake out competition with sportsmanship and humility. They doll play, draw, paint and write, they worship the shell, the rock, the sea. They’re deep minded, and caring, they weep. They are givers.
I never told them their sexual identities, their arousals, and their bodies could be powerfully mishandled. But I told them that humans, often, suck.
We lay out on hot hard beaches, and the sand sticks around our thighs, our behinds, where oglers stare. “It has nothing to do with you,” I could have said. “Remember, you are precious perfection, no one gains permission to access you, unless, and until it is exactly your wish. Do not ever allow someone else to convince you otherwise.
We soak ourselves in coconut oil and protect our faces in SPF creams. We run into icy waves, and steal quick breaths before diving deeply, underwater daughters. We pee and pee and pee into Atlantic tides.
I had every chance in the world to lay the rules out straight, but I had hoped and assumed my unspoken will was enough, that my silent prayers for their safekeeping would manifest.
I should have painted the words of their worth on their bedroom walls.
I should have earmarked their books with reminders of their rights to thrive in this world, and that no single person would be more important than the truth of who they are.
I should have taught my daughters that their gender is not in global competition, and that their sex, and engaging in sex, is a celebratory sacred act, and that they should never, ever, be forced into doing anything.
We must take responsibility for our children’s safety. We must prioritize their self-worth, stitch their hearts in self-respect, self-compassion, and self-acceptance.
I linger at your bedsides, telling you stories, kiss you, hug you, hold you. Even now, still, I am learning the cadence and melody of your holy flights. I pray and pray for your safety. But more than that, I am demanding it, out loud.
It’s time to address the issue of domestic and sexual abuse with preemptive checks in addition to the reparative responses to it.
In what ways can we parents keep our children safe? How can we ensure that the radars we hope our children rely on to protect themselves are foolproof?
· We need children’s books in the classroom, teaching personal boundaries and safety.
· We need Middle School age-appropriate books in the classroom teaching personal boundaries and safety.
· We need High School age-appropriate books in the classroom teaching personal boundaries and safety.
· If you are a parent or guardian, teacher, coach, pastor, preacher, clergy, neighbor, friend or relative of a child, and you yourself are a survivor, think about the ways in which you navigate healthy boundaries and how your choices are role modeling the young humans around you. If you haven’t done the work to heal, do you think you’ll be modeling the fortitude, the resilience, the courage to keep them safe?
· Codify consent culturally and DEMAND a universal understanding of what consent is, across all levels of school campuses — PreK, Kindergarten and all the way up through college.
Tarana Burke says, “People deal with survivors from a place of pity all the time: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry that happened to you. Oh, you poor thing,’ as, opposed to from a place of power. People don’t respond to our trauma and they don’t respond to our tears — they’re going to respond to our strength.”
1 in 4 women have experienced rape or attempted rape during their lifetimes, according to several national U.S. surveys.
SOURCE | FISHER ET AL. 2000; KOSS ET AL. 1987; TJADEN AND THOENNES 2000
