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^Nitama majestic, and below with Yontama

Yontama.

Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.

I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”

Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.

Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.

It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.

Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.

Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.

Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for - surprise surprise - depression.

Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”

TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:

You do not respect their rights as an individual.

You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.

You probably haven’t been listening to them.

Too many parents wonder why their kids aren’t honest with them, and never realize their own non-receptive behavior and their failure to listen are the reasons why.

My kid fell off their bike and skinned their knee. Just skinned it that’s all and they went into full on scream/crying hysterical because it was bleeding and they hadn’t had an injury where they bled within their memory

It wasn’t so much the pain as the blood that made them hysterical.

In that case we could see it wasn’t serious but the chocolate helped them calm down and then I got them to tell me about Terraria until they were calm and their wound was dressed

It was absolutely an overreaction to a skinned knee but it was also an understandable one

you’re not trash.

you don’t have to put up with women who call you trash for being a man.

you don’t have to deal with women who project their negative experiences with men on to you.

you don’t have to feel guilty because of what other men have done.

you aren’t obligated to correct & educate every sexist man you see in order to be a good person. *edit: of course men should be encouraged to stand up for those around them (as everyone should) however they will not be emotionally up to the task at every moment & they should not feel guilty for that.

masculinity is not a prison & is not inherently toxic

you don’t have to feel bad for not expressing your emotions in the exact way that women do

you can be equally capable of taking care of children as any women

your mental health matters

your consent matters

your worth as a person is not tied to how much money you can spend on your partner

you don’t need to be promiscuous or have a high sex drive

you can be an “adult virgin” and there’s nothing wrong with that

you can be affectionate with other men regardless of your sexuality

i might add more to this later but basically what i’m trying to say is that you are a valuable, loveable person & your gender is not a hindrance to that.

- your local feminist 💕

there’s nothing wrong with admitting you made a couple people feel like shit.

there’s nothing wrong with admitting you fucked up and were horribly arrogant and parasitic.