Hi Auntie MJ! I am a person who is being raised a girl (although I’m not). I’m also a person who has been raised to believe I’m not allowed to hold any opinions of my own. Typically it is my father who’s opinion must dictate my own. Occasionally it is my mother, teacher, or whoever it is who is more “senior” than myself. Needless to say, this leads to me being unable to have a productive debate/argument/discussion with multiple viewpoints. Do you have some advice for me to learn to do that?
Dear Ruinedhands,
You may not be surprised to know I stopped on the first sentence of your question. That right there is problem enough for anyone. I made it the title of this post because it is the first thing you told me. Since the second part of your question is actually pretty easy to answer, I’ll start there and then we’ll return to the top.
The parents not letting you have/not listening to your opinions is actually a pretty common complaint among teenagers. (I’m assuming you’re a teen/young adult—if you are not, I have more questions.) We have known about this throughout all of recorded history, even as far back as 1988, when Will Smith (then the Fresh Prince) released the seminal treatise on the topic: Parents Just Don’t Understand.
One of the earliest recorded works on the subject.
In all but the most extreme cases (truly extremist situations, dictatorships, etc.) parents are certainly aware that their children must have their own opinions, and that those opinions may vary from theirs. We all fundamentally know we can’t crawl into another person’s brain and nest there. We can grumble about it or try to exert influence, but most of us know that other people exist and have their own brains.
I think what happens is more that parents often do not feel that their children possess sufficient experience to form opinions and therefore try to impose their own until some future, supposed date in which their children have learned enough, whatever enough is. This usually happens for the best of reasons, namely, worry that something will happen to you if you make a mistake. This isn’t always the reason, but it’s often so.
There’s no timestamp on this. Parents can go on believing forever that their children don’t know enough. I think sometimes people fail to make the leap of imagination when it concerns other people’s knowledge and experience—if people don’t know what they know, what they have experienced, how can they know anything? Of course, the fallacy in this is that they themselves have not experienced everything. We’re all missing information. We all form our opinions based on what we’ve experienced and processed, and what we see and experience is, by the very nature of experience itself, VERY LIMITED.
I’m saying that we’re all just figuring it out.
It’s actually true that when you are young, your database may not be quite as full simply because you’re young and have just started filling it. Sometimes parents make a fair call and protect us from the really bad mistakes. BUT! Our individual capacity to take in and process information varies considerably from person to person. Also, we need to make mistakes. That’s how we learn.
I’m saying that just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t know things. You’re just going to know more as you go on. And for sure you will screw up and change your mind about things. All sorts of things will happen. This is life. There will always be pressure and influence. Most of our current consumer/political/24 hours news coverage culture is entirely based on trying to influence us to want stuff or fear stuff. Throughout it all, your mind is your own. But it does help to be able to see when and how we are being influenced.
First bit of advice: read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Talk to people. This is how you become informed and learn different points of view.
Now, as to how to learn how to discuss opinions once you form them AND how to see what tricks are being used to influence else—TO THE INTERNET! Obviously, never read the comments. However, you can use the internet to learn RHETORIC, the art and science of argumentation. There are loads of sites and books about this. And this is a handy chart of rhetorical fallacies to help you take a discussion or text apart and see if it stands up to reason. You can talk online, in class, with friends. Use every outlet you have. (Also, THE LIBRARY. You can get a BOOK on rhetoric. It will be your friend.)
Seriously. Rhetoric. An old-timey sounding thing, but the most critical when you’re trying to navigate the waters of influence.
HOWEVER, and this however is big, being young does not mean you are wrong about yourself. Our selves can be pretty nebulous concepts. While we change over time, some things we know from early on. You happen to know you’re not a girl.
I don’t know if you’ve talked to your parents about not being a girl. Since you started with that, I feel like maybe you are asking about how to express this to your parents? Maybe? I can’t give you specific advice on how to handle your situation, because I don’t know how safe and secure you feel. I don’t know if you have talked to your parents. Anything could be going on with your family. I will make no assumptions. But if you need outside support, The Trevor Project is always a good place to start. And there are loads of online resources I am sure you (or hope you) have seen.
Here is the important thing, though, just in case this is the real question and just in case you need to hear this from someone: Auntie MJ knows you’re not a girl because you told me so. That is all the information that is required. That you’re not a girl is not an opinion—it’s a fact. You can debate politics or whatever all day long, but this is not a debate. You don’t need to justify it to anyone.
Good luck out there.
Love,
Auntie MJ
Ask Auntie MJ is a thing Maureen Johnson does once a week, usually between Wednesday and Friday, whether anyone wants her to or not. You can submit questions using the ask button.
