How I learned not to apologise

 

Summary for busy people who can't be bothered to read it all: 

 

Do not apologise for knowing something others don't. Do not apologise for being right, ever! 

 

I was nine years old when my dad told me to stop apologising for being right.

It wasn't really something easy but it happened fast because I was a little girl and I always did what my daddy told me. 

I was raised in a catholic school. For those of you who don't know what a French Catholic school is like, I'm not going to get into details here, I just want to talk about the general issue of apologizing to give you some context.

The teaching about apology and forgiveness goes like this:

If someone does something bad to you, they are forced to apologise generally by a teacher and you are supposed to forgive them. The apology prevents the child from being punished because nothing is wrong if they are forgiven. The thing is apologies aren't genuine and the forgiveness is forced too, since not saying “I forgive you” would get you punished.

At home, it was the same. My mother would enforce the rules and if my brother was miss-behaving toward me, I always had to forgive him. I probably had to apologise too from time to time though I would like to pretend I didn't. 

I was at school and it was time for one of my parents to come pick me up for lunch. I was waiting in the recess area. I don't remember exactly how the conversation came about but I know we were discussing birthdays. I was born on the 17^th and another girl was also born on the 17^th even though months apart. She decided that it was unacceptable.

She told me I couldn't be born on the 17^th because she was.

I said that several babies could be born on the same day, like twins and that we weren't even born on the same month.

“But 17 is my number”, she said, “only I am born on the 17^th, you are not.”

 

“But I am,” I answered.

Then three of her friends came over and they started to tell me how impossible that was, that everyone had a different number for their birthday and that mine couldn't be 17 since it was her number.

And here I was. “I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose but I was born on the 17^th too. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” And of course I started crying out of frustration because I knew my birthday for a fact but I had four people in front of me telling be I was wrong. I think I was really starting to doubt myself.

Then my father arrived and of course the other girls ran away, can't be caught making someone cry in front of a parent, really. But he had heard parts of the conversation. Normally, he would have given me a hug and told me not to cry that it was ok, but this time he didn't.

Instead he said:

“Why are you crying?”

I was crying so hard that I couldn't even answer.

He lowered himself down to be at eye level and said.

“You know when your birthday is, they don't. Don't ever apologise for knowing something others don't, don't ever apologise for being right!”

I nodded.

“And stop crying now.”

It was a bit harsh.

He took my hand as usual and we left the place. It was weird. I felt like I had just being scold for doing nothing wrong and at the same time I started to understand something else, something that would make me grow into who I am today. Someone that he trusted to actually see the truth and stand up for it. Someone who would see right from wrong and make the right decision. Someone who wasn't supposed to cry “like a girl” but could actually be strong.

 When I went back to school that afternoon and we did the calendar, I was asked for my birthday.

“November 17^th” I said, and it felt so right to me that nobody dared to say otherwise. 

 

So that's my little story. I don't believe in apologies for different reasons linked to my upbringing. Instead I believe in not doing shit that hurts other people.

In the context of what has been going on lately and the women who have been forced to apologise just for daring to say the truth about the lived reality of women, women's right and women's biology, I would like to tell every women out there, lowering myself to get to eye level, or more likely tiptoeing since I'm quite small:

      Do not apologise for knowing something others don't. 

Do not apologise for being right ever!

 

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