'I’m sure that we come off as rude. But I want to teach my girls that sometimes it’s better to be impolite'
Photo: Graham Oliver/Getty Images A few years ago, I was walking near my apartment with my daughters, then 7 and 4, when an older man I recognized from the neighborhood began to talk to them. He wasn’t in any apparent way a threat, but he wasn’t a friend, either. Both of my girls are by nature slow to warm up and have a healthy dose of stranger danger.
“Well, you’re still a stranger; it doesn’t matter if you’re nice,” I said, and I took their hands and we walked on. I was also angry at myself for calling them shy when it doesn’t matter whether they are or not, for making an excuse to placate a man who felt entitled to their time and attention. How was this different from dropping the word husband when a man talks to me at a bar?
It’s all but certain that in the next decade someone will demand from them a smile, an answer, an expression of gratitude, and they’ll see how quickly an unacknowledged compliment can lead to a threat. I want to teach my daughters that they are entitled to silence. But I also want to teach them that sometimes it’s okay to snarl back. One day I will tell them about how I responded as a teenager: flipped off men, pushed my knees back against those subway manspreaders.
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