Permission to Tell Our Stories
There was a recent Carolyn Hax that caught my eye, mostly because the title referenced being child-free. Except the question asker wasn’t really child-free. He was the father of a child who had died, and because his child wasn’t here, he was on the receiving end of familiar child-free comments ranging from the “you’re so lucky you don’t have kids” to the “you don’t understand” variety.
Carolyn told him to answer truthfully and respond, “‘I actually do know what it’s like’; or, ‘No, ‘lucky’ isn’t the word I’d choose.'” Which is exactly what he should do, but it made me think about why we ask for permission to tell our story.
The person who makes the comment doesn’t ask permission to make the comment. They just make an assumption and comment on the other person’s life without thinking.
[Side note: I am, by the way, separating out the thoughtless from the malicious. We all make assumptions every single day, believing we know things about the person we’re speaking to and commenting accordingly. Anyone who believes they’re sensitive and thoughtful and aren’t negatively impacting other people on a daily basis are not only fooling themselves but are the worst offenders because they won’t even admit how inadvertently hurtful they are.
I am promising you, no matter how kind you may believe me to be, I am hurting people left and right without knowing it when I post things here or walk by people in the store or––worst of all––engage in one-on-one conversations. I don’t believe there is anything we can do to avoid this except try our best to be mindful and minimize it.
It reminds me of the “Monk’s Story” in Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra, and how Ashok sweeps the ground for tiny bugs so he doesn’t negatively impact their lives by stepping on them. He crushes fewer bugs that the average person walking the same ground, but… you know… they’re tiny. He still ends up crushing bugs, even though he may not know when it happens.]
Anyway, the question asker is asking permission to answer, something that the comment maker never asks permission to do. This is a theme of advice columns: it seems people are more often asking for permission to respond vs. permission to comment. But… why are we asking permission to tell our own story? To state facts from our life?
Food for thought.
9 comments
Very interesting question.
Here’s a thought: We are not only part of our individual stories. What you call assumptions on the part of others are actually bigger stories that we are a part of, involving families and bigger communities. We participate in these bigger stories because it helps us get along with others. Being different from the bigger story is scary because it means people will have a hard time relating to us and we will be isolated. There are actually good reasons to pretend to be part of the bigger story even if it’s not entirely true for us.
Also this “Anyone who believes they’re sensitive and thoughtful and aren’t negatively impacting other people on a daily basis are not only fooling themselves but are the worst offenders because they won’t even admit how inadvertently hurtful they are.” This is certainly true….however. As potential recipients of hurt and offense I believe we also need to me mindful of the games we are playing.
One feels what one feels in the moment and I don’t believe emotions are ever right or wrong. They are what they are. I do believe it is possible to sensitize oneself to hurt and offence, and this is a choice. For example noting every instance of hurt, ruminating on it and asking for and receiving sympathy is very likely making a person more likely to feel hurt by others and to notice it more often, regardless of the motivations of the offending party. It is likely programming our brains to react in a particular way. I have come to see it as the shadow side of support group culture.
I think because it feels more deliberate. The commenter most like doesn’t realize they are making me uncomfortable or sad when the comment on xxx but when I respond “actually…” I do so knowing I’m going to make it awkward. And I know that’s not wrong and it’s my story and therefore I can tell it whenever I want, but sometimes it’s just easier to let it go.
My younger daughter is adopted and when it comes up in relation to a seemingly innocuous comment, I have to decide how willing I am to kill the conversation by sharing (she looks like her sister so it’s not immediately obvious she’s adopted).
Because the truth is, that’s sometimes what happens when you drop a truth out of nowhere. All depends on how the receiver takes it.
I love your observation that commenters don’t ask permission to make assumptions or inject their bias. I get resentful of the fact that sharing my actual story is a conversation killer, that anything outside the “norm” is fodder for awkwardness. Why is that? Why are some stories “acceptable” and others “awkward?” I wish it was just as socially acceptable to frankly share a loss or grief as it is, to say, share a birth story or advice about breastfeeding. Sigh.
Also, yes to inadvertently (or advertently) hurting and offending people. An unfortunate side effect to participating in life.
I love this. I often wonder why the No Kidding childless amongst us feel that by simply speaking our truth we are somehow being rude. Though I’m one of the first to keeping my mouth shut. I don’t think we should have to ask permission, any of us, to share our stories. As someone noted above, assumptions are usually a result of lack of knowledge, and so responding and correcting them isn’t rude, it is a teaching moment.
However, I do think that we have every right to choose whether we want to share them, to decide whether the person deserves to hear my story (for example) or not, and to decide if I have the energy to tell it or deal with the reaction.
I have an intense debate about this for the first 30 seconds after someone asks the question “do you have any kids?” my answer always varies. DO I feel like going into this? do I want this person to know such an intimate detail? should I let them keep thinking I never had children? am I betraying my son’s memory by saying no? This past weekend someone asked and I said no, but of course that wasn’t enough and then they continued with: “well, why not. Don’t you want children? If you do want them you should have them soon, you’re not that young, I’m 29. i was in a bad mood the rest of the day.
What Mali said “However, I do think that we have every right to choose whether we want to share them, to decide whether the person deserves to hear my story (for example) or not, and to decide if I have the energy to tell it or deal with the reaction.”
Yes. When I was waiting to miscarry last year, I was at work when a co-worker said in front of my boss and others “isn’t it about time you had another kid” and I just got awkwardly silent because 1) I didn’t think she had a right to know, I didn’t want to share it with her. And I didn’t want all the other people to suddenly feel sorry or bad for me and have it be a whole thing.
As Beth said, it feels more deliberate if we say something because we KNOW it’s going to make it awkward.
And as Jess says, it’s definitely a conversation killer. A couple months ago, again at work, a different co-worker mentioned something about me and my family building and if we were done or something like that. I wasn’t really listening because I was upset that people feel like they can just talk about this so haphazardly, so I just snapped that I had lost a baby last year. And that I didn’t tell anyone when the person started apologizing saying they didn’t know. And then the conversation got quiet and no one said a word at all.
An excellent point observation about commenters not asking permission to comment. And also that even the most sensitive of us is probably making incorrect assumptions that can cause offense.
I don’t tend to ask for permission to share. But also I don’t always choose to share.
I think in Goldfinger* (book, not movie), James Bond is getting a lecture from a guy from the treasury who insists that what he’s saying is top secret, then remembers he’s talking to the secret service who literally has secret in their name. Bond reassures him saying that it was good to remind him, “No one ever think anyone else’s secrets are as important as their own.”
I think that’s true with respect one’s truth as well, we say stupid things like that, because we have our own truth. I’ll say, “You’re so lucky you have a large and healthy family,” to a friend, and she is lucky and grateful, but in that moment when I say that, she’s not thinking of the living children she has, but of the 10 miscarriages she had. She’s thinking about her nephew and nieces who have died and missing them too. We’re all icebergs and people only comment superficially, but they can’t see what’s beneath the surface. So what do we do? Do we share the depths of our soul?