A few months ago I was out at a fancy ice cream place with my eight-year-old daughter. She got chocolate chip, and on a lark I asked for a taste of tarragon and pink peppercorn. It was delicious, and I wound up buying a cup.
I offered her a taste. She declined. I thought she’d really like it, and I thought she’d be chuffed to have tried such a weird flavor, so I offered again. She declined again. “Just one taste,” I said.
“No,” she said. “My body, my choice.”
I’ve used that phrase with her and her sister since they were toddlers, trying to drum it into them. Don’t want to hug your grandma? Don’t want your sister tickling you? Don’t want to wear the mask from your Halloween costume when you trick-or-treat? Your body, your choice.
But this was the first time she’d used it on me. She was right. And I apologized.
Her body, her choice. Period.
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 23, 2011 at 12:39 am
Shora
My only coherent response to this is “Awwwwww, that’s SO cute!!!”
July 24, 2011 at 8:22 am
Sunday Reading « zunguzungu
[…] My Body, My Choice, My Ice Cream […]
July 24, 2011 at 4:37 pm
T. Li
Love this! Thanks for raising strong, intelligent daughters.
October 14, 2013 at 10:03 am
Dear Mehdi Hasan | Edinburgh Eye
[…] Oh me oh my. Mehdi, where do you stand on rape? If it leaves you “perplexed” that a girl shall have the right to say “My body, my life, my choice” and decide to terminate a pregnancy, how do you feel about Jimmy Savile, who also found it perplexing that any girl should think it was “her body, her life, her choice“? […]