My twins are 7 years old — half as old as I was when I was sexually assaulted by a classmate during the summer before my freshman year of high school.
I don’t think I had learned the word consent in that context by then. I’m not sure when I first understood it as a concept.
But my daughters know. They’ve known it since they were 2. And when they were 3, one of them told me “my boogers, my choice” after I told her not to pick her nose.
“Who’s the boss of your body?” “I’m the boss of my body!” was one of our earliest parenting lessons, second only to “trade” (because two babies doesn’t automatically mean two of everything, contrary to popular belief).
I want my daughters to know that they have agency and self-determination. I want them to know themselves, believe in themselves, and be free. I want them to be kind and grateful, selfless and self-assured, and, most of all, I want them to be safe.
When they walk into their North Hills elementary school each morning, they’re the smallest students — and the bounciest. I recently wondered aloud if I was bouncy — how did they get like this? — and realized that no, as an undiagnosed autistic kid, I never felt safe enough to bounce.
I want them to never lose that bounce.
When the predator is a classmate
I was 14 years old (and still undiagnosed) when I was sexually assaulted by a classmate from my suburban middle school west of Pittsburgh. At that point, I had only a vague notion of “predators” as shadowy figures creeping in dark alleyways who I “learned” to defend myself against in middle school gym classes.
At some point during the school year, my class was split up by gender. The girls received lessons in self-defense while the boys lifted weights.
Thinking about that time in the midst of current events, it seems absurd. Why is it that while adolescent girls were being taught how not to get raped in a middle school wrestling room, the boys weren’t being taught not to rape? Is it because the gym teachers, too, knew only about the faceless alleyway predators?
When I was sexually assaulted by a classmate, someone I had known since first grade (I stole a gummy candy from his desk once), I didn’t know I could be victimized by someone known to me. I didn’t know how to navigate the social dynamics of the situation, let alone the sexual ones.
I said “no” and “no” and “no,” but I didn’t understand what was happening. I had barely even kissed a boy. I didn’t think I was supposed to use the gym class self-defense moves on someone I knew.
I never reported it. I had very strict, over-protective parents, and I assumed I was at fault. I didn’t tell anyone at all — not for a long time. I didn’t understand what had happened because I didn’t know it was something that could happen.
Eventually, the boy who assaulted me developed a reputation for doing it to other girls. One of them reported it to the police (it made the local news), and my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to come forward, too.
We visited the police station together, and I recounted what had happened to me. They asked me if I wanted to press charges, and I declined and said that I was hoping it could help them with their existing case. It turned out, that’s not how it works. Accountability is available strictly on a case-by-case basis.
Teaching ‘no’ when the target is toys
Anytime rape or sexual assault is in the news, I can’t look away. The commentary, perceptions and assumptions voiced by strangers on the internet about the Cornell 7 horrify and fascinate in equal measure.
I don’t seek it out. I’m not sure why I’m seeing it. I assume everyone is seeing and talking about it, but maybe it’s just my algorithms. They seem to know I’m a woman and a millennial and a mom. Maybe they also know it happened to me, too.
It’s hard for this not to color how I’m viewing the world right now. I’m seeing the problems and possibilities and thinking about how we got here and how my daughters’ generation can hopefully get somewhere else.
Sure, I didn’t know about consent as a teenager, but MeToo has happened; I thought the younger generations would be better off.
In the midst of this, my twins were recently playing with some new kids from school. My husband overheard them saying “no” repeatedly, like another child was doing something they didn’t like and wouldn’t stop.
He stepped in and saw an older child, a boy. He had three younger girls, including my daughters, backed against a wall. He was standing over them, trying to grab their toys while they said “no” and tried to keep them away from him.
When my kids ignore each other’s no’s, we’re always quick to cut in with: “Stop. Listen to her ‘no.’ You don’t have her consent to continue.” But you can’t discipline someone else’s kid like that. You can’t assume their parents talk about consent.
Thankfully, all it took was an adult presence to stop this behavior. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, what these kids will need to learn in the next seven years, when it might not be their toys, but their bodies, that the boys desire and the girls want to keep from them. When an adult might not be there to step in.
What do my daughters need to know to be safe around alleyway strangers and classmates alike?
What do their male peers need to learn? Who will teach them how to hear “no?” How will they know what it means?
Should I fear my daughters’ fearlessness?
After that recent interaction, I debriefed with my daughters, as well as one can debrief with first-graders.
I asked them about what happened, and they confirmed the order of events. I asked them how it made them feel, and they said “mad.” “Not scared?” I asked. “No, angry,” they said in unison. I’ve worked so hard to ensure they feel safe, yet I think it would have made me feel better to hear that they were even a little scared.
I’m glad my daughters feel safe enough to bounce, and I’m also worried about what that means for their safety. Is it possible to feel too safe? When do I start talking to them about danger? How do I break it to them that people they know and trust can hurt them? Will they know if that’s happening to them? Will they be able to stop it?
I didn’t pass on my hypervigilant nervous system, and I’m grateful for that every day. My girls get to have a different experience than me in so many ways. And yet I can’t stop thinking about how to protect them from sharing an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I think it isn’t solely up to me.
So I told that boy’s mom what he did, but she didn’t seem to care.
Shannon Parris is a multiply-neurodivergent Korean millennial who was raised by white adoptive parents in a suburb of Pittsburgh. She’s a self-employed idealist who works at the intersection of nonprofits and entrepreneurship, and she can be reached through her website shannonparris.com.
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