Honesty vs Niceness…
Messages for my daughter…
This.
I get this feedback a LOT.
A few years ago, I stopped centering my communication around “niceness”
Why? because it’s dishonest, and often unclean.
Now I’m teaching my daughter this skill.
It’s only been through watching the expectations heaped on her, I’ve realized just how heavily indoctrinated our culture is around this theme of “if we can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”
She has this lunch monitor at school who is overly familiar with the girls at the table
Every day it’s a new story about how this women made her feel uncomfortable.
She asked me, “what can I do?”
Being honest about her boundaries hadn’t felt like an option. To her, the truth felt disrespectful.
The school has had this whole kindness indoctrination campaign since she was young. So I get it.
I explained how honesty is always the kindest thing. Not just for others. But for ourselves.
She looked skeptical.
I then suggested a script. It was honest, and to the point.
She had so much fear, but she did it the next day anyways.
The lunch monitor acted hurt (which is a gross, immature, & manipulative response to a child’s honesty) but honored her boundary anyways.
My daughter came home feeling empowered.
I literally have a hundred tiny examples like this that I’ve collected since it’s been on my radar.
We’ve got to move away from this. It justifies lies. It justifies contorting ourselves in to shapes that don’t fit to put another person’s feelings above our truth.
And worst of all, these are the very things that lead to bypassing behaviors that then manifest as chronic health challenges.
I’ll be damned if I let my child grow up in a paradigm centered around inauthenticity for another person’s sake.
