Dear “Hip” parents, please stop oversharing details of your children.
The world doesn’t need to know your daughter is on her periods.
No Sir, you’re not doing a great job of entertaining the world by sharing intricate details of your children.
I pissed my pants in school, multiple times — in fact it was so common, my parents would usually pack an extra pair of pants for me to take with me to school; just in case I needed them.
Though despite my uncontrollable urination, my parents never felt the “urge” to “tweet” it out to the entire world.
In fact, they were so protective — they even went as far as to not discuss it in front of my siblings.
Back then, we called it “respecting your child’s privacy”.
These days, “it’s entertainment”.
I get it, you’re cool — you’re hip.
The world doesn’t need to know when your daughter is on her menstrual cycle or when your son was jerking off; seriously, be considerate.
It’s a matter of privacy, and you’re probably not helping your child’s self-esteem by sharing these details for the sake of “entertainment”.
It’s not funny, it’s disgusting — and Yes I’m absolutely judging your parenting skills, even though I’m not a parent; but I damn well know how it feels to be a child with insecurities.
Maybe you seem to have forgotten.
I’ll admit, maybe it is because I come from a different culture and that I have no idea what it feels like to go through a menstrual cycle.
I do know, how traumatic it can be when parents decide to share personal details I’d rather not have discussed in public.
Even to this very day, my parents respect my privacy to the point that my personal struggles with Depression, Anxiety, and Suicide have never been discussed with anybody without my permission.
They support me when I decide to talk about it, and they applaud my courage to be able to write about it.
I don’t think I’d be too comfortable if they made a mockery out of it.
I don’t feel that sharing photographs of me as a child when I used to wet myself in school, out of fear and anxiety at an early age, would’ve helped normalise it for me.
I love my parents for always having the utmost respect for my life, and not divulging in gossip about details and emotions that were deeply personal to me; for the sake of entertainment.
I’ll admit, maybe I am wrong — and maybe this whole thing is just about me being upset over something that doesn’t / shouldn’t concern me?
Yet, it does — and I feel like it needed to be said.
Because as an educator, the things that parents “don’t notice” is what I have to witness in a class room; and it’s not pretty.
It’s a Social Media post that further ignites a cultivating culture of cyber bullying which leads to verbal and physical bullying, and a failure of parents to admit “wrong doing” when confronted about such issues; because it’s always the “teachers fault”.
So if you’re a parent, and you overshare details of your children’s lives without consent; maybe ask?
Maybe deep down they’re not comfortable with the liberty with which you attempt to normalise experiences of trauma for them.
Maybe the bullies they fight in school are far less worse than the ones you’re creating at home.
Maybe…for once, think and ask.
For the sake of your children.
