This week marks Canada’s recognition of injustice to generations of Indigenous peoples with the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Not unlike South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canada can only begin healing the past when the subjugation stops. And not unlike entrenched institutional beliefs, personal bias toward each other can also cause equally negative consequences on individual levels. Without taking away from the powerful themes and formidable outcomes this national discussion is driving all peoples toward, my daughter lives tiny facets of this struggle in her two-household reality.
Forced relocation. As incredulous as it sounds, my ex decided to move out of the city without telling me. She had already bought a house and scouted the area for schools and I discovered all of this when the principal of the new middle school inquired about the father’s contact information. When I asked my daughter, she was mortified as she too, was kept in the dark. Uprooting children without serious consideration and extensive discussions, much less consent is simply not going to happen unchallenged. Thousands of years of history should already attest that removal from one’s land they have always known can only end badly.
Substitution of social identities. Part and parcel of the move is to dissolve my daughter’s extracurricular social circle she’d built over the last 7 years (half her life). Her interests would be reregistered to local, smaller teams/clubs with the aim of eventually ending those as well. Certainly, my daughter’s social identities will need to be recast and even if they were to happen, it will never be made the same again.
The concept of default opportunism is not only outdated but have been proven many times that stifled voices do not make louder ones right.
Repetitive trauma. Gratuitous and unhinging disruptions aside, it is not okay to continue to erode the reasonable choices and self-determined actions of children repeatedly. A generous child may excuse the first infringement, but recurring attempts speak no longer to the needs of the child, but the sanctimonious rationale of the parent.
A child never stays that way. They will always grow up and because of the bitterness they may have had to endure, they almost always grow up to become more compassionate adults. But prior to my daughter exercising her own voice, she has my voice. As a tiger dad, I know I’m a force to reckon with. At court, the judge also didn’t mince words and proceeded to lecture her lawyer on using legal remedies to solve parental issues. The judge reserved her choicest words for the ex and a stern reminder that the benefit of the child must be the prime directive.
Long gone are the days where mothers are given default child custody because of their gender. Increasingly, dads are viewed favorably and even unconventionally as the underdog parent. The concept of default opportunism is not only outdated but have been proven many times that stifled voices do not make louder ones right. Children do not grow up suddenly and only then are their voices legitimate at 18. They have been telling, nay, screaming their choices to counter ours for years and years. Deferring their involvement and participation in decision making until an arbitrary time when it can no longer be enforced by you will only end in volatile transition. It never has to be this way. How we treat another person speaks much more about ourselves. And as I learnt recently from an elder, ‘the way we react to something is how we were taught, the way we respond to something is who we are.’
