Ask by Kitty Stryker

Author:Kitty Stryker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thorntree Press
Published: 2017-08-25T18:26:24+00:00

Bodily Autonomy for Kids

Akilah S. Richards

I often hear people talk about pregnancy from a space of gratitude—and sometimes excitement.

Though I agree that the journey is incredible and enriching, there is another, perhaps less embraced aspect. For me, pregnancy was also full of moments of intense vulnerability, fear, and at times, anger. I felt fearful about my own safety, it being so inextricably linked with the safety of the person growing in my belly.

Inadvertent pushes from someone who stood in a line behind me, an overly ambitious driver who darted across my path at an intersection, a woman who threatened me because she (wrongly) assumed I stole her parking spot—all those instances of intense vulnerability and primal fear, stemming from my need to protect my future child.

Even more unnerving were the instances where physical contact with my belly wasn’t just implied, it was accomplished. This is where my anger would rise to the surface—I’d get angry at the people who felt completely within their rights to touch my belly, to touch my baby. Whether an elderly man or a woman who was also a mother, I resented them for feeling okay with touching my child without permission, even when she was in utero.

For sure, I felt uncomfortable with them trying to touch my body—and all that that says about being a woman in a public space. But more than that, it clued me in to many adults’ idea that they don’t need children’s permission to touch them—or to require that they touch someone else.

Today, my daughters are twelve and ten, and I still feel the need to protect them physically—and to advocate for their right to govern their own bodies. But I have to do more than advocate for them.

In a world that constantly sends messages to women about connecting their value with their physicality and desirability, I need to help them operate with an awareness of their right to reject or accept physical touch, or any act that affects their personal space or feeling of safety, from any adult or child.

And that means I have to be honest about the ways that I, myself, might infringe on their personal boundaries, and I have to facilitate these conversations with the adults around me. And I don’t just mean conversations about what we can do to protect children, but also about what we must do to help children understand their options for protecting their physical and emotional selves.

One way we can approach this goal is to explore some of the common mistakes we adults make when it comes to helping children practice bodily autonomy, which is at the root of consent culture for children. Otherwise, we will continue to do the things that compromise the self-confidence, the sense of safety and bodily autonomy, and the mental wellness of the children we love. Because the reality is that children are coerced into situations where their bodies are treated as the property of their parents.

These instances vary from making them hug a family member to trading their body for sex, drugs, or even food.

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