We can start with bacon...

I have a certain style of communicating with my kids that started way back when our daughter was approaching the teenage years. Because it can feel embarrassing or self-conscious to have someone call you out directly on something, when a serious topic was on my mind, I took the approach of striking up a random conversation and steering it accordingly and in hopefully a not-obvious way. 

​In my mind, being able to say some things that could be thought about after the conversation - assuming it was relatable and made the intended impression - opened up more of a possibility that it might be applied to the situation intended all along. She didn’t immediately feel exposed and then defensive, and I could speak about possible consequences and outcomes that had to do with this other person in their own situation, not her. For example, if I happened to come across some information about something she was doing in secret that I felt warranted some counsel but didn’t want her to feel like her privacy had been invaded, I might bring up a conversation about a similar situation and talk through it with her, eliciting her point of view and thoughts on it before wrapping it up with some things that she will hopefully think about and apply to her own situation. 

There’s that whole part of kids’ and young adults’ brains that isn’t fully developed yet, and we can’t expect them to connect all the dots of cause and effect on their own. At the same time, the benefit here is to say something without telling them what to do; to say it in a way that might in turn help them to make a decision that feels like their own —- this is empowerment and it’s more likely to build confidence.  At least this is how I see it. 

What I know is that no one really likes to be told “you should do this” and then expect to hear later, “I told you”. However, if it’s not direct and unsolicited advice but rather conversation, then it gives the other person the freedom to take from it what they will and hopefully make a more informed decision “on their own”. 

There is a quality in one of my kids that I saw very early on - it’s a wonderful quality; it also is one that can set him up for being taken advantage of or of being unfulfilled personally in order to make others happy instead.  I recognized this in him probably because I saw it in myself. It’s the PEOPLE PLEASING quality - the one that prompts a person to always let everyone else choose what they want first, to always give others the thing that would make them happier - but at the expense of what I myself might have chosen for myself; at the expense of being free to feel my own feelings and to express my needs and live my life the way that feels good and healthy to myself. It puts everyone else’s needs ahead of my own and makes my own feel expendable. It teaches others around me that I don’t feel strongly about my own desires and, as such, my wants are unknown and become insignificant to others and possibly even enables others to feel more entitled to theirs. It downplays the validity of my own feelings. It festers a loneliness in myself that will take me until my 40’s to try to turn around. Because very rarely does the other person say, “No, you choose”, and especially if it’s inconvenient for them. 

After a while, you can forget what it was you might have chosen for yourself and after a while longer, you can forget how to express your needs at all, how to feel entitled to your choices, how to feel worthy enough to speak your mind. You can actually begin to feel like it’s your RESPONSIBILITY to forego your own needs out of love for others. Please know I’m not talking about common courtesy here, I’m talking about giving our best to others while also having a reasonable expectation of how others treat us too and not lowering that bar. 

If we teach people how to treat us, then isn’t it important that we assert ourselves so others know these are my boundaries, that I’m not afraid to say what I like and don’t like, and that I expect you to do the same? To have our space in this world and to know who we are, what we like and don’t like, what we want and don’t want — it sets us up for a happier existence.

When I see any of my kids having trouble speaking up, I remind them that their point of view is important. One of the topics that comes up often in our house, for example, is the mispronunciation of our last name. My husband himself is guilty of not correcting people when they say it wrong, and just saying it wrong back to those people to make it easier on them. I put my foot down about this when the boys were born, because to me it’s not for a person to get use to other people saying your name wrong, it’s for other people to learn to say it right. And I want our boys to be proud of their name, to remember their Spanish heritage every time they speak it, to not allow others to inadvertently white-wash it, and to teach those around them how to say it correctly. Our family doesn’t walk around mispronouncing other peoples’ names with the attitude that “This is just how I say it so deal with it.” We actually want to know how to say someone’s name so we can say it correctly. Why shouldn’t it be this simple? So I have been persistent about teaching our boys that it only takes someone a couple times of being gently corrected to remember and that it’s important because it is a part of their identity. When I dropped them off at summer camp last week and we reached the desk to sign in, the boys gave their names. The person looking down the list found them and then read their names back to them - incorrectly. All of the boys in unison corrected him, respectfully. I was so proud of their courage. I want to see them replicate this courage and confidence in every aspect of their lives. I want them to do the things for themselves that I didn’t do and that I still to this day am paying for… because I taught others how they could treat me - which was way less than I deserved, what they could expect from me - which was to bend over backwards to make them feel comfortable at the expense of my own dignity, to feel entitled about their own needs and to see my needs as being an inconvenience and imposition on them. Had I done the things I knew were right for myself 35 years ago or anytime since, the complications in my life would be less today. People would have respected me for it or not but I would not have been a doormat for all of those years, and maybe I would not have suffered in my health, in my mental and emotional wellbeing, and with my self-worth.  

So today this sweet, people-pleasing boy of mine that I want to protect from becoming me or rather I’d like to help become more like the version of myself I am today… I had a conversation with him after finding out that he once again found himself in a situation of doing something he didn’t want to do all because he didn’t want to speak up and say what it was he wanted. He felt he would be perceived as a bother if he’d said, “I don’t like that. I’d rather have it this way.”  And so then he had to deal with the awkward and uncomfortable consequences of just going along with what someone else chose for him. Without addressing that situation directly and saying, “You should have…” I stopped the car and looked at him and said, “I want to remind you of something.” He looked at me and asked, “What?” I said, “Baby, the things you like, what you want, the feelings you feel, the opinions that are yours - they are all as valid as the likes, wants, feelings, and opinions of any other person on this earth. Don’t ever stop yourself from saying, “How about this?” or “I’d like to” or “I really don’t like that, but I like this”.  Because the other person can still choose for themselves too, it just doesn’t mean they have to choose for you. You both deserve to be happy. You deserve to enjoy every situation as much as everyone else and you deserve to be yourself as much as anyone else. You’re not ever a bother. You’re an equal.” Basically, I said all the things to him that I wish someone would have said to me when I was his age.

He looked up at me and said, “Mommy, you know what I realized this morning?” My heart fluttered with excitement about what aha moment he’d had that I might have contributed to with our conversations about life, and I said, “Tell me”.  Full of enthusiasm he said, “I realized that I like microwave bacon.”

I tell myself this going exactly as I planned. He is taking the pep talk I gave him and will be applying it later… as his own idea. We can start with bacon and go from there. 👊🏼

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