I have both a cat and a dog on my lap, chilly because of the drizzling rain, and I am late again, so…instead of writing something about the Southern Baptist Convention, about which I know far too little, let’s keep plowing through the last chapter of She Deserves Better.
Just to remind you, the chapter is called “She Deserves Permission to be Big.” Not sure how far we can get today, but let’s do our best. I’m going to quickly summarize a few of the remaining sections, and then wrap it all up at the end.
First up, “She Needs To Know: Disagreement is not Rebellion.” The authors talk about something called a “submission quiz” whereby, I guess, young women can figure out if they are submissive enough. These quizzes, or scales…let me just interrupt myself. This must be peak triviality. How does anyone have time to take such a quiz? What would they expect to actually learn about themselves? Why are we even online? What is the world even coming to?…sorry. I’ll try to pull myself together.
Where was I? Oh yes, apparently these sorts of scales doc points if the quiz taker says she disagrees with a person in authority. Ok, so, if such a thing exists, obviously, that’s unhelpful. Disagreement should not constitute rebellion. Not necessarily.
Except when it does, of course. Sometimes we disagree with those in authority because we are rebellious. Other times we just disagree. I say “we,” of course, because everyone is rebellious sometimes and merely disagreeable at others. This is why gumption is such a nice virtue. Having the sense to examine yourself to see why you are having such an angry and violent reaction to something might help you. It could also be that you, as a mother, might be uniquely equipped to help your daughter sort through her own motivations without resorting to online quizzing. Or not, what do I know?
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