Harmful Innocence

I woke up to a weird though this morning. When I was in 5th grade, one of the girls confided in me that all the boys had ranked us according to attractiveness. I remember her smiling at me in kind of a pitying way and telling me that I shouldn't feel so bad. I actually ranked higher than she thought I would, given how fat I was.

At the time, I wasn't sure how to feel. I hate to say this, but in some ways, I felt really relieved because I wasn't at the bottom of the list. I was annoyed with her for being so smarmy about it. She was at the top of the list with another girl in class. In retrospect, I think this was some kind of 'establish dominance/humble brag' on her part.

What I didn't feel about the whole situation was outrage at the boys making the list. And here's the thing, it was an actual little survey that they passed around. Every boy was given a chance to rank the girls from 1 to however many there ere of us. Now that I'm an adult, I find the whole thing really offensive. How dare we be objectified like that. How dare they presume to assign us rank.

Of course, at that age, my mind really hadn't grasps those concepts, sadly enough. I think we get so caught up in hoping that kids are liked that we forget to tell them that they should be liked and valued for dignified reasons. People ranking you high because you have tits and some other girl is flat-chested really isn't a reason you should give a shit about. In fact,  the people who do that kind of thing are the people you should do you best to avoid.

The problem is, adults have this compulsion to try to shield kids from the reality of the world for as long as possible. Adults bank on kids having innocent thoughts until one day they suddenly realize the innocence was gone quite a while ago and it's too late to try and explain some of the gory details.

People talk a lot about how kids get raised these days. A lot of people complain about it. A lot of people offer solutions. A lot of people question every decision and do the best they can to be the perfect parent. It's understandable. For the first time in history, we have some elements of society where having children is a choice. In most first world countries, there are methods of birth control available. Even people who choose not to use them are still making that choice. They know they could change their minds if they wanted to.

This is a fundamental shift in how we view children. Making the choice to bring someone into the world implies a whole level of responsibility to this person that wasn't felt when children just showed up without much control on the part of the parents. It's the difference between 'this is something I have to deal with' and 'this is something I have invited into my life.'

My mother didn't see me as a choice. I was her mistake she had to pay for. So I guess she saw no obligation to educate me about how to value myself. Maybe she wanted me to feel that kind of humiliation. I wouldn't put it past her. I am aware of how sad it is to think that about your mother.