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 17th
and another girl was also born on the 17th even though
months apart. She decided that it was unacceptable.
She told me I couldn't be born on the
17th 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 17th, 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 17th 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 17th” 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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