We live in a small town. The kind of valley where you know everyone because you’ve been here for a decade, and even more so the kind of valley where everyone knows you.
Places like this have their pros and their cons, and one of those pros or cons (depending on your mood or the night) is that when you go to dinner, you generally know the people in the restaurant.
Well, last week I went to dinner with my daughter and my mother. We went to a restaurant down the street from my house and the owners son is the bartender. He looks freakishly like my ex husband and he adores my daughter. She, however, is extremely caustious with men, and therefore generally does not look at him, though he tries incessantly to get her attention.
This particular evening, he threw a piece of ice in her direction from behind the bar to get her attention.
Now, my daughter is three and is obviously instructed to not throw things, so when he did this, we all chuckled and she looked at my mother and I and asked “Why did he throw ice at me?” In my opinion, this is a pretty harmless act, and there was nothing wrong with it, BUT, then this happened….
My mother looked my daughter straight in the eyes and said “He likes you and sometimes when boys like you they do things like throw things or hit.”
OH HELL NO.
Now, look, I know this is an innocent act and I know my mother didn’t mean anything by her response, but God help her because I lost my shit. And I’m not sorry for it either.
I’m pretty sure based on the delivery of my reaction, my mother didn’t hear a single thing I said to her, and some things aren’t worth the effort. If someone disagrees with you and is unwilling to be open minded, there is little to nothing you can do to change that. This was one of those instances, and there was nothing I was going to do to change it, so, I collected myself, looked at my daughter and corrected her Yaya by saying, "Baby girl, it is NEVER ok for a boy (or anyone) to hit you or throw things at you, and if someone likes you, they will not treat you that way." Now, was that maybe a little bit of a large conversation for a 3 year old? Maybe... I'll remind you though, this pattern starts young and it is passed down from one woman to another and so this thing that we fight so hard against is, in fact, caused by us in the first place. Ladies, can we please break this chain?!
Look, I understand that I am more sensitive to this than the next person, but I won't allow anyone to tell my daughter to excuse a mans bad behavior because it likely means he likes her.
A week later I was at dinner with my mother again, and one thing lead to another and she said this: "You clearly have some serious PTSD from your marriage." When I was mildly shocked from the comment and asked her to explain, her response was that my PTSD was made clear to her when I jumped all over her because she told my daughter that boys hit girls to display affection.
Now.... I have become quite skilled at holding my tongue in lose lose situations, but if you are going to be foolish enough to circle back a week later, then I am going to take the opportunity to explain (which I guess I should have done better before) why my reaction was so severe.
Let me begin with this: As a mother of a 33 year old newly divorced single mom, who had only just learned in the last year that her daughter was secretly in an abusive marriage for years, I would have expected my mother to draw the line between teaching HER daughter that boys hit when they like you, and that same daughter ending up in an abusive relationship.
In the most collected way possible, I'd like to point out that what we teach our children is, most likely, what they will learn and believe. More importantly, it will shape the life that they lead and the path they choose to follow. I left my marriage with intention for a few reasons, which I will expand on in a blog post of its own, however, for now, I want to make clear that one of those reasons was so that my daughter would not grow up believing that it is acceptable to be hit, pushed, choked, or held down by a man. Ever.
Part of continuing that lesson is in never putting that idea in her head - visually or verbally.
Now, as I sat at that table, and listened to my mother blame my reaction to her comment on PTSD, I had this flashback to the first time my mother said those words to me. I was three or four years old (not far from my daughters age) and I had a "boyfriend". His name was AJ and he was over at our house playing when he pushed me to the ground. No one did anything. So I punched him. I refused to ever hang out with him again and I distinctly remember my mother telling me that he had done it because he liked me, that I should still spend time with him, and that I should never hit anyone. WOW.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THE GIRL WHO USE TO HIT BACK? Where did she go for so many years, and how in the hell do I find her again? I like her...