Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.
My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.
Who alway got in trouble? Me.
They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.
She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.
The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.
I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.
So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.
These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me.
“Melissa, did you punch him?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he snapped my bra strap.”
And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.”
“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.”
“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?”
I didn’t get suspended that day.
*slow clap for excellent parenting*
This is the parent I want to be omg
Once when my daughter was around 5 years old we lived in a townhouse area (bunch of houses all attached to each other in a little U shape) there were a lot of children who played around there so ny daughter had a lot of friends.
A new family moved in a few houses down from us. There was a lot of yelling and partying going on at that house. They had a little son about the same age as my daughter. Shortly after they moved in my daughter came home crying, telling me that the new boy pulled her hair and hit her really hard because she didn’t want to play a certain game with him.
Now I got mad. I always told my daughter she should never hit people because is was not nice and if you don’t like being hit then you shouldn’t hit others. So i went over to this boy’s house and talked to his mother about his behavior. She said she’d deal with it. A few months go by and I keep hearing stories about this boy attacking and hurting, not only my daughter but other little girls in the area.
Finally i had had enough. I took my daughter and her little friends with me over to the boy’s house, knocked on her door and when she and her son came to the door i told her
“I have asked you several times to talk to your son about how it is not right to hit little girls, or anyone for that matter and so far it seems that you have ignored me. So I’m here to let you know that, as of today, I give my daughter and all these little girls my permission to hit back. That means if your son touches one of these girls again they have every right to hit him back and twice as hard.”
She laughed at me and said “you can’t do that”
So I turned around and looked at all the little girls and said “if he ever hits you again, you hit him back, and make sure it hurts. If you get in trouble with your mom’s, tell them to come talk to me because you have very right to stand up for yourselves.” I then turned around to the boy’s mother and said “now if you don’t want your son getting hurt i would suggest telling him not to hit little girls”
After that i heard about a few instances where he would hit someone again but he always got hit back. Eventually he figured out that those little girls were going to fight back and protect themselves. I never heard from other parents about me giving their children permission to hit back.
But it was something my daughter had to learn. Don’t ever hit other people unless you are defending yourself. In that case you have every right to defend yourself and I will never get mad at her for that.
This is what my mother always said to me. "Don't ever start the fight, but be sure as hell to finish it"
