My Daughter’s Safety Doesn’t Need To Cost Her Freedom

For various reasons, the millennial parent is getting increasingly worried about her children’s safety. Especially, about her daughter’s safety. But at the same time, this parent wants the daughter to grow freer and more independent than ever.

daughter roaming alone freely
Photo by Nina Uhlíková on Pexels.com

My daughter goes to a co-education school. Actually, to be precise, she used to. Thanks to COVID-19, she now has a distant memory of having gone to school. Now she attends online classes.

Anyway, when my daughter was in the nursery class, her school had sent home a circular. It was a notice for a fun splash-pool event they were going to organize for the kids. It included a request for the parents to “ensure that girls wear decent swimwear”.

I wrote an email to the school taking objection to the language. I reasoned that these words had the subtle effect of making decency a responsibility only for girls. And that they unwittingly freed boys of all such rules of decorum. I requested the School to consider extending such rules to all ‘children’. Rather than only girls.

The Principal called me to discuss my email. She explained that in the past some parents have sent girls with two-piece swimwear for the event. Seeing as the male staff of the School would be around during the event, the school had to put in the specific request. Anyway, she expressed her understanding of my concern. And she was open enough to consider my request for future circulars. 

The Disturbing Question

I knew where the Principal came from. We have all heard about those incidents of pedophiles targeting kids in schools. I knew that the school was doing what it thought necessary to protect our kids and keep parents assured. Yet, since the incident, I have had a question rankling inside my head. Was my daughter’s safety too going to come at the cost of her freedom? And at the cost of her sense of equality? 

After I wrote my last post about curbing rapes in India, this question came back to haunt my mind.

I had talked in my post about the freedom of women to dress the way they like in public. But will I be able to let my own daughter free about her dressing sense when she is say, a teen?

It struck me that if the society at large did not change from what it is today, I won’t have a choice. I too will have to tell my daughter to dress up based on fear rather than her own comfort. Even though it is unfair, I will have to. Because I too want her to be safe. 

Or maybe if I push for change in society today, and if I find support from you, the reader of this post, I won’t have to tell my daughter to curtail herself after all. 

You Too May Be The Parent Of A Girl 

You too may have a daughter like mine. Your daughter’s safety may be a concern for you too. And you too may not want her to think of herself as a lesser being than a boy her age. 

You may be thinking of teaching her the good manner of sitting in public, and the logic about underpants. But you too may be wary about instilling ‘shame’ in her about her body.

Or maybe your daughter is already a teenager. You may be wanting to tell her it was okay for her too to visit the market wearing shorts. That she too is independent enough to walk back home alone, even after its dark.

You may be wanting to warn her, teach her, and prepare her about potential dangers. But you may also be wanting to tell her that if any untoward incident does happen to her, it would not be her fault. Even if the culprit was her friend.

Or You May Be The Parent Of A Boy

You may have a son. And you may be wanting to bring him up exemplarily. You may be wanting to teach him to accept and respect a woman’s autonomy over her body as he has over his. You may want him to learn that a different body doesn’t make him superior, inferior, or more or less privileged than a girl in any way. That both of them are supposed to mind their own bodies and clothes.

And you too may be wanting to tell your son or daughter that it is not enough to not be in the wrong. That they should also not allow such wrongs to happen to others around them.

But then you may be concerned that they might find themselves singled out. What if they do not find public support? And what if society ridicules them for doing something you told them was okay? What if your daughter is accused of being too liberal? Because other parents still ‘made their girls dress decently’. What if your son is mocked for not exerting his male dominance, which still was the normal thing to do for a man? 

Well, the future of our children is up to both you and me today, isn’t it? 

A Pact For Ensuring The Daughter’s Safety

making pact
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Let’s all teach our daughters to believe in total equality and their right to choose. And let’s all teach our sons the same thing. If all of us do that, the next generation will find equal-minded peers around them. And they will influence the rest of their peers to think equal too.

Of course, none of our children is going to learn equality if we don’t practice it already. So we will first have to check and change ourselves. We will have to talk more responsibly around our kids. We will have to stop using language like ‘Men will be men. She should have been more careful.’ Or ‘Don’t worry that he is out late. He is a boy.’ We will have to call out inequality when we see it.

I am hopeful that once ‘you’ and ‘I’ have changed, and have taught our children, we will be through. We as parents or teachers or principals will no longer have to worry about the male gaze or female wear. Our children will live free and equal.

Let me know if can count you in for building that future for our kids.

6 thoughts on “My Daughter’s Safety Doesn’t Need To Cost Her Freedom

  1. As you have rightly pointed out, onus is on us. Given a chance people look for some scapegoat but never introspect. Never ever. Normalizing little things would help a lot in future. Like not giving a special status for men who share household chores or who babysit. Likewise not saying that my beti is like a beta because she is independent and has a mind of her own. People so comfortably forget that society is made up of people like themselves. Once we fight our own double standards, society would become much kinder, inclusive and exemplary.

  2. हाँ नेहा आपके विचार एक नई सोच के साथ नई पीढी को विचार करने को कहेंगे । मेरा मानना है कि पुत्र हो या पुत्री सही गलत के संस्कार दोनों में होने चाहिए ।हमें बेटियों को आत्मरक्षा और आत्मनिर्भर पूर्ण आत्मविश्वास के साथ बनाना चाहिए और बेटों में ये संस्कार सिखाने की विशेष आवश्यकता है कि स्त्री जाति को ससम्मान व्यवहार करना है । यदि ये सम्भव हुआ तो फिर कुदृष्टि कुविचार पनपने ही नही पायेंगे ।

  3. Wow neha…..I must say most of your blogs on parenting express my concerns and feelings, which I struggle with almost everyday. Every new day and every new phase in my child’s life brings a new form of worry and concern for me to deal with.

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