The “Let Them Theory” IRL: When to use it and when to say HELL NO!

3 Lessons I learned when life put my ideals to the test

“It’s only when things get hard that you’re forced to learn lessons.”
~Simone Charley, Angel City

If you’ve been following my posts, you might be sick of me talking about the workshop I recently attended with Elizabeth Gilbert and Dr. Tererai Trent. At the risk of coming across like the annoying Survivor Contestant who returns to their tribe bragging about their unbelievable reward, I come bearing nuggets of the reward to share with my tribe:

“…the importance of owning a voice that matches [your] dreams, and a mind that breathes life to those dreams.” Dr. Tererai's Grandma Gogo

The dream that I walked away with was to increase access to the privileged opportunities and transformative takeaways that will help others
plant and cultivate their own dreams. I want to expand the reach beyond
the 300+ (mostly white) women who were in the room.

I returned inspired to breathe life to my dreams,
but with only one guaranteed expectation:
all of it would be soon put to the test.

The universe certainly delivered!

As I previously mentioned, upon my return home,
I embarked on 4 challenging days of solo parenting
while my partner was attending a conference in sunny SoCal
(note: every time I’m thrown into the wild world of solo parenting, I grow even more respect and admiration for the parents who do it day in and day out. I see you).

Was it my dream to come home only to discover a nasty, mysterious rash on my daughter? Nope. But thank god for our access to quality, expeditious medical care!

Was it my dream to spend hours on the never-ending loads of laundry and cleaning in a desperate attempt to keep the contagious rash from spreading to anyone else? Hell no! But thank god for a washer & dryer in the comfort of my own home.

In the grand scheme of things, this was all a piece of cake! 
“What do you have next for me, universe?”

The next few days, she answered loud and clear, plunging me into some murky waters that I waded through together with my 9-year-old daughter.
But challenges are just lost opportunities
if we don’t glean the lessons that we’re meant to harvest.
And if I don’t share the fruits of that harvest, then I’m failing my dream.

The universe was very clearly telling me that the first step is to think beyond my own “champagne problems” and help others see new ways of applying these lessons.

Lesson 1: “Let Them”
So here I was, Day 2 into solo parenting: I’d gotten a handle on the medical situation and was starting to come up for air from the tidal wave of laundry.

My dear daughter came home with a heartbreaking account of her day, which went something like this:

“At lunch, all of my friends moved over to the “cool girls” table where I’m not allowed to sit because of my peanut allergy.

Then I tripped and fell into my lunch tray.

Then at recess, [my BFF] told me she would finally play with me,
but then she changed her mind. But before she ran off to her other friends,
she looked at my outfit and said:
”By the way, that outfit really doesn’t look good.”

So then I sat on the swing by myself for the rest of recess.”

After I was talked off the ledge by my emotional support village, I was able to remind myself of my own words in Learning to lean into the discomfort:

Shielding your kid from discomfort only prolongs the discomfort
and prevents them from learning the most important life lessons early on. 

So I put the fangs away, and focused on the lesson:
We can’t control how other people treat us,
but we CAN control
what we tell ourselves about it,
and who we choose to give our precious time to.
How they treat us does not say anything about ourselves,
but it tells us everything about them.

I was reminded of the “Let Them Theory”, which I’d first heard about on the Mel Robbins podcast (thanks to my awesome friend, Meaghan, for sharing this one, and to all my friends who feed my inner podcast nerd)!

I decided to use this moment to read my daughter the “Let them” poem:

I love Mel’s 1 minute summary, which went viral.

People are going to hurt my daughter and let her down for the rest of her life.
That risk is unavoidable in order to have meaningful relationships.
When someone hurts us, they’ll either eventually own up to it and do better next time,
or they’ll get defensive and keep doing more of the same.
Either way, it tells us all we need to know. 
Whatever they choose is up to them, not us.

Let them show you who they are and believe them.
Let YOU fill yourself with your own love and compassion (trust me, click through and watch)!
Let YOU surround yourself with people who make you feel good about who you already are.

It’s heartbreaking watching your kid go through these experiences,
but I’d much rather she learns these hard lessons now,
than to make it to adulthood before she stops internalizing people’s shit
or allowing herself to be repeatedly mistreated by the same people. 

So at that point in the week, I was patting myself on the back.
We’d read and discussed the “Let them” poem,
she’d found the confidence to try out new recess activities like foursquare,
and she seemed like she’d really internalized some positive messages from
this brilliant anti-bullying video.

Of course, just when you think you have it all figured out,
and you’re ready to hand yourself a parenting of the week trophy,
you’re reminded there’s ALWAYS more to learn…

Lesson 2: Let Them…until it’s time to say HELL NO!

When you see someone else blatantly wronged, discriminated against, or attacked, be the one to speak up against it.

In the above video, Brooks Gibbs points out:

“When I say bullying, I’m not talking about when someone punches your face…
you should get upset if someone punches your face.
That’s not bullying, that’s called assault and battery!”

No, thankfully my daughter was not actually punched in the face, but what DID happen was arguably more traumatic.

She was playing with some friends on a playground after school when she saw some middle school boys eating peanuts nearby. Her severe peanut allergy means direct contact would send her into anaphylaxis. Fortunately, she’s had enough experience navigating this allergy and advocating for herself that she put aside her extreme shyness and told the boys that she’s deathly allergic and asked them to eat the peanuts away from the playground equipment…at which point, they proceeded to chase her. With the peanuts. Threatening that if they caught her, they’d rub the peanuts on her body.

Thank GOD she “runs like a girl” and she outran those boys like it was a matter of life and death—because she knew it was. She was able to hop the short fence to safety and alerted me to the situation.  I’d been standing there chatting with my friend while our girls played, and let me tell you, what happened next was a powerful, moving, glorious scene for me to witness. 

You might be thinking the situation seems like a harmless act, maybe even a sign of a “schoolyard crush”, and perhaps they just wanted to scare her but not actually do anything if they’d caught her. But just imagine yourself at age 9 being chased by older kids wielding some kind of deadly weapon.

These are the thoughts that raced through my mind in the seconds where I stood there trying to calm myself.
My heart pounding and my mind racing,
trying to figure out how to address the situation.

I stared into the eyes of the ringleader boy
who was still holding something that he’d weaponized,
inducing sheer terror in a little girl.

In that moment, I knew he didn’t understand the severity of his actions.
I knew it probably came from some sort of morbid curiosity.
But that didn’t matter to this mama bear whose cub was just attacked.

This mama bear is, quite honestly, exhausted from fighting this fight
and picking up the pieces of a little girl’s anxiety and fear
day after day,
year after year.

So in those seconds as I processed it all,
trying to find the right words that would get the point across,
I was simultaneously calming my own nervous system,
trying to find the energy to fight the fight once again…

My kickass friend Tara stepped up, without hesitation, to fight that fight for me.
Quite literally, she reamed those boys out like SHE was the mama bear.
When one boy started blaming his friend, she simply said:
“No! Stop acting like little jerks!”
Yes, she said that—to kids she didn’t know. That took guts.

And in that moment I felt so damn supported.
My daughter felt supported. 
The boys realized just how serious it was. 

After that, I was able to explain why the peanut in their hand was a deadly weapon.
I explained how there are different types of allergic reactions.
I told them I know they wouldn’t want to be responsible for putting a little girl in the hospital…or worse.

The looks on all of their faces told me it was all sinking in.
I’m confident they’ll never torment another kid with a severe allergy again.

Guess what? I wouldn’t have been able to deliver this logic if I’d had to be the one to address it right away in the heat of my mama bear rage.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tara stepped up to protect and defend my daughter. This gave me the chance to collect myself, and to respond with the compassion I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to express. I’m not sure she’ll ever know the depth of my gratitude for this moment.

Those boys needed both the surprise of being called out,
AND the calm, logical explanation that followed.
One without the other would not have made the same impact.

I share all of this because here’s the bigger picture:

My daughter’s peanut allergy is a hidden disability.
Any hidden disability comes with its own set of challenges.

But it also comes with a clear privilege:
She could have chosen to simply leave the playground,
and the boys never would have known about her disability.

Reflecting on this experience reminded me of how many people walk through life wearing their disadvantages on their sleeve:

Anyone who is not able-bodied,
anyone who is not white,
not cisgender,
not straight,
and anyone who feels they have to hide who they are in order to be accepted—
or even physically safe just walking down the street…
I see you. Literally and figuratively.

For those of us who don’t have to bear the burden of this daily psychological warfare, please look around; pay attention to those moments when someone could use a voice to step up on their behalf.

Call bullshit on the injustices you see.
Without hesitation.
Without waiting for the person being wronged to address it.
Without waiting for the moment to pass.

They’re tired of calling BS on the injustices!
Most of the time they likely don’t even feel safe calling BS.
At the very least, they’re probably even thinking there’s no point in calling it out.

So yeah, if someone wants to choose something or someone over you, LET THEM.

But if you see someone chasing another person with a literal or figurative weapon, whether it be a peanut or words of hate, say “HELL NO”!

ESPECIALLY when it’s not “your fight.”
Don’t wait until the heat of the moment has passed.
Don’t go up to someone afterward and say: “What just happened to you was terrible.” That’s just not helpful.
Step up in the moment, even when you don’t know the “right” thing to say!
Anything is better than nothing at all.

Thank you, Tara, for calling bullshit in that moment, and for reminding me of the importance of using our own privilege to call out the injustices in the world.

Lesson 3: Circling back to “let them”

All of this reminded me that in those moments when you know you could benefit from someone else’s help,

PAUSE.

LET THEM step up for you!

This is not easy for me to do.

In “Boundaries, burnout and the ‘Goopification’ of self-care”, Dr. Pooja Lakshmin and Tressie McMillan Cottom discuss the 4 life-changing pillars of real self-care (listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or the NYT).

The 4th pillar, exercising power, seems to be the hardest for many of us to put into practice. It requires recognizing where you have power (and how to best use it), and the areas where you feel depleted of power (and how to allow someone the chance to share some of theirs).

“You need to know when, based on what privilege you have,
and ways in which you’ve been oppressed,
whether you want to be receiving help or giving help.” 
~Dr. Pooja Lakshmin

We each need to grow more comfortable with BOTH giving and receiving help.
There are areas of our lives where it makes sense to be the giver,
and other areas where we should open ourselves up to receiving.

When we ask for help or pause to give someone else a chance to step up,
we’re modeling for others that it’s not a sign of weakness,
but an opportunity for someone else to step up for you.
You’re giving them permission to do the same, without shame,
when they need YOU to step up for them in their own moments of need.

Full circle moment:

I’m drawn back to Dr. Tererai’s reminder:

“My daughter, ask yourself, ‘does my voice match my dream?
Is my dream leading me to a calling greater than I am?’…
It requires one to ask the question…
‘What breaks my heart?’…
It is in those moments of our brokenness that we find
redemption, compassion, and deep healing.”

Let them
Say hell no
Let them step up
Let’s step up together, for each other.

Tinogona.