9781626569768

afternoon, while Nia, I, and several of the neighborhood kids beat the
midday pavement in a rousing game of red light/green light, the adults were
loudly scrutinizing our clumsy, gangly child bodies. Looking us over with
equal parts marvel and pity, my two aunts and Nia’s mother demanded,
“Nia, come here. Are those bee stings, Nia?” My eldest aunt snickered.
“Yup, looks like she’s been stung,” my younger aunt cackled. “Mmm-hmm,
she been stung, and I just don’t know what I am gonna do with her now!”
chided her mother. My ten-year-old self was seriously confused. Why
wasn’t Nia crying after being stung by a bee? I always cried when that
happened. Was it a special bee that didn’t hurt? And even more confusing
were the adults. Why were the grown folks laughing at her and being weird
instead of helping her? Within moments it clicked. No one was discussing
an insect-inflicted injury; they were poking fun at Nia’s… gasp… boobies!
Ten-year-old Sonya was mortified! Of course, if I could figure out this notso-inside
joke, certainly the eight other kids milling about would be in on
the comedy soon enough. And my God, would this be what happened to me
when I got the dreaded bee stings? In a mere five minutes, I had run
through every embarrassing disaster scenario my puberty might elicit from
the surrounding adults, all while poor Nia fled the scene, retreating to her
home. I saw Nia just a few times the rest of the summer. I think she was
hiding. From that moment forward, puberty became synonymous with
public humiliation. I learned that our bodies and their changes were areas of
public domain—and things to broadcast, be teased about, be ashamed of.
Radical Reflection
Children’s bodies are not public property. Teaching children bodily
autonomy, privacy, and consent are the cornerstones of raising radical
self-love humans.
Can you recall the messages you received about your own rapidly
changing body during puberty? For all its everydayness, puberty is hard
when you are a kid, even for those of us with experiences the world might
call “normal.” To understand the scope and range of body shame, we must