Every night at eight o’clock, one of you takes me to my bedroom and reads a book, like Where the Wild Things Are, and then you announce it’s time for bed and everyone is going to bed now. Then you think I will trust you blindly and have the emotional capacity to fall asleep. You call this puzzle “Bedtime.” But I know the truth – I know it’s not bedtime yet. In fact, I know you two are about to open a bottle of wine and get unlimited screen time. These lies—all these years of convincing me that bedtime is important—constitute toxic behavior, and I need you to respect that I will no longer participate in this cycle of manipulation.
My next point may be hard for you to hear, but it’s important to respect my boundaries and call people exist When they disrespect them. Mom, Dad – expecting me to eat any vegetable at any time is narcissistic, pretending a piece of broccoli is a train that needs to go through a “tunnel” is gaslighting. You may not remember this, but, on our most recent family outing to the zoo, I discovered what a train actually is, and it’s nothing like a piece of broccoli. You can jump right into “Just Some Monkey Business: Introducing Our New Bonobos.” If you can’t respect the boundaries I’ve drawn, you’re putting our relationship at risk.
“Abuse of power is not surprising,” said artist Jenny Holzer. Indeed, this is not surprising. Despite our obviously imbalanced power dynamic (you have real money, and I have something called a KidBux), I’m expected to do the emotional and physical labor of putting my Legos in boxes and my straws The cup is placed on the table. I did all this not for proper pay, but for a meager “Good job, honey!” from Dad. Dad, I wonder what would happen if your boss told you “Good job, honey” instead of giving you a paycheck. I no longer have room in my life for people who don’t understand and accept my worth and treat me accordingly.
Now begins the dreaded bath. Often, during bath time – which I had no involvement in helping set up – I would pursue my own independent hobbies, such as seeing what all my clothes would look like on the floor and then seeing how they would look in my play tent look. This is an important time for me to ground myself—to take care of myself. Then I was told it was bath time. If I scream and cry so much that no sound comes out of my mouth, one of you will often say, “She’s just sleepy.” My request is that you try to reframe that as “She’s just sleepy.” defended herself and was stretched to the limit of her emotional bandwidth.” Then, as you reflect my reality back to me, you might understand why it’s absolutely essential that I give up bath time in order to put my stuffed animals in the laundry basket and then put them in there with them.
While I continue to defend myself, I want to acknowledge that I’m taking care of myself by expressing my needs, and you should be happy and grateful for that. In the spirit of healing, I want to drive. Not driving is traumatic for me. I have the emotional capacity to recognize your reality and affirm your reality that only mom and dad drive, but I am now asking you to affirm my reality that putting me in a car seat rather than the driver’s seat is a power over us Abuse of power. There was really only one way to correct this critical mistake, and that was to drive me around in circles at super fast speeds.
I don’t even want to dignify the intergenerational trauma that led to not letting me play in the cathouse as if it were a sandbox. But know that this is a cycle that I want to end.
I hope you consider my boundaries and respect them. If you can’t, then I’m not your daughter, and, come Christmas, I will be moving out of this toxic environment and moving in with Santa Claus. Thank you mom and dad for giving me space. ❖
