A few days ago, I was having lunch with a friend at a local café, when we were suddenly distracted by three moms sitting at the booth behind us. I honestly wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but their conversation got louder and more emotional that we couldn’t focus on our own conversation.
Long story short, one of the moms was really upset because she had seen on Instagram that the daughters of the other two mothers hadn’t invited her daughter to a gathering. She was angry that her daughter was excluded and came to speak up for her. She shared that she follows her daughter’s friends on social media to keep tabs on what’s going on. By the way, I wasn’t intentionally listening in, they just spoke so loudly and my friend and I were totally distracted by them.
I was surprised by what I was hearing and at first I found myself judging them and the situation. I wondered, “Why are they fighting their daughters’ fight?”, “What lessons are their daughters going to learn through this?” and finally “What’s really going on here?”
One of the worst feelings is the feeling of being excluded and not part of the group. No matter how young or old, it still stings and burns. And I can imagine that the mom at the table has had her fill of personal experiences of being excluded and not accepted. And we can swallow that pain and hurt when it happens to us. But when it happens to our babies (child, tween or teen) it brings up our personal pain and we want to do anything possible to protect our children. We don’t want them to experience the same hurt and pain that was so awful and I get that.
But when we fight their fight, speak up for them, or address their pain for them, what do our daughters learn?
“I need my mom to speak up for me.”
“Being excluded is the worst thing in the world.”
Or worse “I don’t have a voice.”
It is important that we are mindful of the message we send our children when we speak for them. When they are hurt what they need is for us to listen, validate them and if they are open, help them find solutions to deal with the situation. By no means is this an easy task, and it will require patience and consistency on the part of the adults. But by going in and taking care of the fight for them isn’t helping them either, at least not in the long run.
Let’s help our children find their voice when they’ve been hurt. This is true empowerment.
Much love,
