Raising activists, a self help guide

At the ripe old age of nine, I was asked to complete a school project on an animal of choice. Given that I was a go-hard-or-go-home kind of student, I asked the librarian what the largest animal on the planet was, to which he vaguely responded ‘probably a whale’. With that sound fact in mind, my pre-google-dated research started and roughly two hours later, I returned to the librarian desk and asked how I’d go about joining Greenpeace.

Despite the fact that I dutifully reminded my mother to snip plastic bottle top rings and avoid the strangulation of sea turtles, admittedly, I never did get around to sailing off in the pursuit of whaling ships. Somewhere in between oceanic obsessed youth and today, I was side tracked by life and general adulating.

That was until the universe handed me two humans of my very own. Naturally, karma being the boss that she is, upgraded said humans to the deluxe ‘I have a very strong mind of my own' package.

Sitting on the kitchen stool, swinging her legs in boredom during breakfast, the youngest of these two glanced periodically over my shoulder as I scrolled through the hundreds of feminist girl power posts popping up on my Instagram account, and questioned why I all these women were waltzing the streets with placards of Princess Leia.

‘Firstly, darling, because Carrie Fisher is a Goddess and we bow before her legacy’- obviously - ‘and secondly, because when we see or experience something that we feel isn’t right, we have the option to put our hand in the air and say "no, I do not agree", otherwise we have to sit back and watch it continue to happen.’ And thus, I began to explain a brief journey of feminism to a six year old. From Frida and suffragettes, to Spice Girls, to Matlida’s player strikes to pussy hats. All this over porridge and tea.

Paused for response, I wondered if I had overwhelmed the little brunette with drama beyond her years. That was until she raised one eyebrow at me and spat in disgust ‘but I can do anything the boys in my class can do.’ I swelled with pride, said ‘yes you can my love’, then rinsed our plates and ushered the crew off to the car for school drop off.

We’re all aware of that moment of clarity that hits us when we discover a delicious plot twist that causes our eyes to bulge from their sockets and our jaws to swing unhinged, are we not? A similar emotion swelled in my brain that day, only it was more of the ‘wait, what?’ surge you get when The Bachelor picks the wrong blonde.

Holy. Flipping. Bollocks. What had I just done?

I returned home from work that evening to fully realise the extent of what I had unlocked. This particular six year old, bless her, could sell heating systems to the devil. And I had just handed her a key to a world where Mummy says it’s ok to fight dirty for personal injustice.

And fight dirty she would.

Neatly lining her bedroom floor were several hand drawn signs, leading to where she sat crossed-legged and wearing her game face. She had decided, given my own encouragement to do so, that it was within her power to peacefully protest the serving of vegetables at dinner.

‘I shouldn’t be forced to do what makes me uncomfortable,’ she said.

‘I have the right to say I don’t agree,’ she continued

‘You would encourage me if I chose to not eat meat for ethical reasons.’

(Agreed, I would have.)

‘I will not have my rights violated to fit in with the crowd.’

(Really wished I hadn’t taught her that one.)

‘And I think it is unfair that the vegetables are cut down from where they are growing and boiled and fried. They should be left to grow and be in nature where they should be feeding the environment cycle’

(Made mental note to cancel all access to the internet.)

For eight weeks, continuously, she brought with her to each dinner a written sign and a verbal list of demands. For eight weeks, continuously, I called my mother and apologised profusely for the sins my youth.

The perplexing balance of preach/parent was being pressed vigorously against my conscience, demanding reaction. Here was a young woman of the world, the incubator of our future, finding the strength and power in her voice for the very first time, calling out the world and standing her ground. The activist in me was, on one hand, gratuitously proud. This tiny human had taken her first sip of revolution, and it had not tasted of vegetables. She was empowered. She was thirsty for knowledge and answers. She was celebrating her joy in free will. She was finding cause after cause to throw herself behind...She was going through an absolute fortune worth of Smiggle pens on each vanilla scented protest sign.

But, then there was the other hand. The maternal one. Granted, it all sounded joyous on paper to have a woke little person trailing behind me at the grocery store, but this was not simply a fun little anecdote to spark girl power. This was happening at my dinner table. Night after night. In very real life. The fact of the matter remained, she was six years old and, like it or protest it, the kid needed to eat a bloody carrot already.

Yes. She’d had her fun. I looked forward to telling such stories at her twenty first birthday, but it was time to pick up her fork and understand that her diet could not be constructed around items dipped in chocolate. Because I am her mother, and it remained my job to enforce that fact.

Regardless of how many times I had spun the merry-go-round of ‘not all adults are right just because they’re adults’ and ‘speak your mind when that passion tells you to’, I had no choice but to tell her she was wrong, I was right, and to shut up about it.

In that very fact, lies the bitter and resounding simile of our culture that I was struggling so hard to proceed correctly with. I had to inflict my superiority of rank upon her and place limitations on what she was allowed to have free speech about.

How do you teach a child who is begging for emotional empowerment and self-guided freedom, that there is a difference between speaking your mind and just talking back to your parents?

Is there a difference?

To be honest, she had made so many valid points, even I was starting to doubt it.

This was the first experience she had had with finding her individuality and understanding that she had the right to question what she felt she disagreed with. (If you didn't count the tantrums she’d thrown regarding her desire to use a sequined evening clutch over a back pack for school.)

I couldn’t, in good conscience, completely dismiss her standpoint.

After the fateful dinner of forced carrot ingestion, I knocked on her placarded door and sat beside my little activist. I presented her with the iPad.

‘I want you to see this,’ I told her as I googled away, and carefully swiped through heavily censored images of the African hunger crisis. I explained that nutrition wasn’t only a necessity, it was, in our world, a blessing to have. That the food she turned her nose up at each night, was begged for each night by children in Ethiopia, Somalia, Lesotho and so many more. Children her age. That her health was a gift. A gift it was my job to protect.

Her tiny bottom lip bent upwards and quivered silently. She looked at me through glassed eyes and asked in a whisper ‘what can I do to help them?’

That was the week she asked to donate her pocket money to buy fast growing vegetable seeds for a community through World Vison. Ever so slightly with the thought this may mean less for her. 

It was also the week I managed to convey that while her voice is worthy and powerful, she must never stop educating herself about what it is she fights for. Ever. Nor would I.

MONTHS LATER

‘Mum! I absolutely need a mobile phone!’

‘You’re six. No.’

‘No, it’s to save the rainforest!’

I shift in the drivers seat and look at her in the rear-view mirror.

‘Go on then, tell me why you need a phone to save the rainforest.’

She draws breath.

‘Do you remember when we went to the zoo and they were telling us about how the tigers are endangered and then at the end they showed us all the companies that use unsustainable palm oil and how we should email them and demand change? Well do you know what you can do with a phone? You can email,’

‘You can use my phone to do that if you like.’

‘No, I real feel it would mean more coming from me and my own phone.’

‘And this has nothing to do with wanting to play games and text your friend who just inherited her sister’s phone?’

‘Mum, how dare you.' She theatrically places her hand across her heart. 'This is about the rainforest. I wasn’t even aware they could play games.’

Indeed. Strong minded women. A wonderful thing to be. A nightmare to parent.

NOTE: We have settled out of court for a non-disclosed pea to chicken ratio.

@sendhelpandcoffee