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.

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 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.

Millennial Worry For Daughter’s Safety Starts Early

This was more than a year ago. My daughter and her classmates must have been 4-year olds at the time. Even as a society that loves to stereotype, we don’t normally view kids of that age from the perspective of their sex. But 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?

The Resurgence Of The Question

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 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?

But, well, the future of society is up to both you and me today, isn’t it?

A Pact For Ensuring The Daughter’s Safety

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 are 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.