The other day Husand and i were walking through a neighborhood near our apartment and we passed a house with three little girls playing in the garage. They were wearing tank tops and flip flops and dancing to an Avril Lavigne song blasting from a stereo.
When i was a kid i used to feel disdain when i saw girls like that. how dare they expose their shoulders, how dare they listen to the music of the Devil, and what if a man was walking by and saw them!? Obviously they would be kidnapped and raped on the spot. They deserved it. those sinful worldly 8 year olds.......
As a teenager i would have been jealous. and angry. why was i NEVER allowed to be normal? why did i have to miss out on having friends? why was i still struggling to keep up with my peers? it wasn't fair that i didn't get their jokes, it wasn't my fault that i grew up in a box. How dare my parents make me into such a retard? Who were they to hide the whole world from me? Why had they burdened me with all this shame and guilt that made me afraid to dance to the music, and too ashamed of my body to ever dress the way i wanted?
As we passed the house, the chubbiest girl with curly blonde pigtails looked up at me, her huge blue eyes were cheerful and innocent, completely oblivious to my conflicting thoughts, and suddenly i didn't feel disdain, or anger, or regret, i just felt really hopeful. Someday my children will be able to dance with their friends, some day my future daughter will be 8 years old and innocent, not even knowing what disdain is. I have the power to raise my children without guilt or shame, without anger or regret. They wont have to be outsiders, or fr eeks, they can just be kids.
I read a lot of blogs. By folks who lived through the same things i did. Many had it much worse. But you live your lives and raise your children so differently. It's beautiful to see and inspiring to read about. Your stories about your little families give me hope that My Kids wont have to live the life that i did. And that's just one more fear i don't have anymore :)
Someday I am going to write a letter to Rod and Staff about their tract they sent out regarding how to teach your children good values. They talked all about making sure your girls understood modesty and proper attitude, and not a word in the instructions to the boys about respecting women and girls and exercising self-control. Being married to a man who was sexually abused as a toddler and young child, I'm just dying to know what they see as the solution to that. Just how, exactly, did a four-year-old little boy "tempt" a grown man to be sexually attracted to him? And the obvious conclusion - one I doubt they will accept - is that sexual assault stems from the wickedness of the perpetrator and not from the promiscuity of the victim.
ReplyDeleteI love it! I feel the same way - my little girl will be allowed to be NORMAL. Also, I wrote about this feeling of being a foreigner in my own country, this cultural disconnection from my peers, here: http://lovejoyfeminism.blogspot.com/2011/06/cultural-disconnection.html
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing some of the similarities of experience across various conservative religious groups. I grew up in a different religion, but still with the patriarchal emphasis.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a lot longer than you to go beyond disdain. I was in the "disdain" mode until I was in my twenties!