In Vietnamese, hiền means kindness or tenderness. But it's so much deeper than that and could better be described as a warm goodness and compassion that just exudes out of one's whole being. Our son has this on a deep level. He is all kindness and cuddles. I pride myself on the fact that he got my social skills, but certainly can't claim credit for this one. I have 1/10th of his hiền-ness. Interestingly enough, he did get my husband's deep thinking and inquisitive mind. This is a child who frequently catches me off guard by asking questions like "why is there war? If God is everywhere and loves everyone, why would He let that happen?" all before my morning coffee. Let me just tell you, there is not enough coffee in the world for me to be able to answer that question well.
A few weeks ago, we were back to school shopping and I grabbed a bottle of shaving cream since it was on the way to the registers.
Kindness & Cuddles: Mama, what's that?
Me: It's shaving cream.
KC: So you can shave like Daddy?
Me: Yes, but Daddy shaves his face. Mama shaves her legs when she wears shorts or a skirt.
KC: Daddy doesn't shave his legs. He has lots of hair on his legs.
Me: Yeah, he doesn't. He's not expected to.
KC: Why do you have to?
Me: I dunno, bud, cuz society says I should.
...long pause as he's thinking about it and I'm loading their supplies on the conveyer belt
KC: That sounds dumb, Mama. Don't you think that's dumb? You shouldn't have different rules than Daddy. That's just dumb.
Queen Sass: Oooooo, brother said dumb!!!
Me: (chuckling) yeah, he did, but you know what? He's right, that does seem pretty dumb.
I don't think the kids thought about that conversation much more than those few minutes in Target but I thought about it for days and days afterwards. There's an Amy Poehler quote I've read often that says "it takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for." And while this isn't something I'm apologizing for, it was something that I just accepted without questioning beyond the annoyance of the exercise from time to time. How many things have I just taken as the facts of life without giving it further thought?
I've been incredibly fortunate to be part of a study group of leaders in my industry and during one of the women only meetings, we all shared that we felt that we had a responsibility to make things better for the generations of women that came after us and to work with good men who could be allies in this space. After the shaving cream conversation, I brought this up with my husband and how if our son turned out to be a bit of a feminist and fought to give his sister and other girls the same opportunities he had, I'd feel pretty damn proud of ourselves as parents. My husband then responded that he couldn't see how that wouldn't happen given that I've taught our kids that RBG is a superhero and the only T-shirts I've willingly bought them were hers. And with that, I leave you KC's T-shirt with my favorite quote from the late great, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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