Once you label me, you negate me. ~Soren Kierkegaard
I am:
shy
ADD
depressed
anxious
too sensitive
bi-polar
ME. I am me. I won’t be defined by a label… not yours, not mine, and not the “experts'”. I am me.
And my kids? They’re my kids. They’re people, each one of them individuals. They are not a set of characteristics or facets or “quirks.” They are not a description in a book or a pamphlet in the pediatrician’s waiting room. They are not hypothetical. They are not like anybody else. They are not mere ingredients of a whole, or something to be molded or refined or altered to fit into a certain box. They do not need to be diagnosed. They do not need to be labeled.
This article, from Health Impact News, says that 650,000 kids are already on Ritalin. As if that’s not enough, children who are too quiet or ‘moody’ or not as social as their peers now “run the risk of being diagnosed with mental illnesses and given powerful drugs like Prozac, psychologists have warned.” Not as chatty as the kid sitting next to you? Must be social anxiety disorder. Sad because your betta fish died? Clearly you’re clinically depressed. Voiced a contrary opinion to someone in charge? Why, that’s surely caused by your oppositional defiant disorder.
I think the thing that bothers me the most about this disturbingly increasing use of labels (and subsequent dispensing of medication to “treat” them) is this end goal of making everyone somehow the same. The quiet kids need to be more outgoing. But not too outgoing. The energetic kids need to calm down. But not too much. The kids who are too rigid and regimented need to relax. But just a little. The ones who are making up stories in their head and looking out the window… well, they need to learn. to. focus. Let’s just take away all their differences, and all their uniqueness, and all their personalities. Let’s make everyone NORMAL.
But wait. I have a question. Who the hell decides what “normal” is? And why is it something I’d ever want myself or my kids to strive for? I don’t want “normal” lives for my kids. I want happy. I want healthy. I want full, and rich, and interesting.
I want them to know that there isn’t something wrong with them because they are too quiet. Or too loud. Or if they learn quickly or slowly or in a different way than the kid sitting next to them. Or walk differently or talk differently or think differently. I want them to know that they were created exactly the way they were created for a reason. I want them to know that they are not a label, and they are not a box-filler, and they are not automatically a member of whatever group someone else wants to lump them in with.
This is not to say that I think we should ignore it when our children are unhappy or struggling in some way. In fact the opposite is true. I think it’s our job as parents to continually ask ourselves how we can best meet their individual needs. I think it’s our job to ask ourselves what we could do make their lives even better. What we could do to help make their lives more happy and peaceful and fulfilling. They don’t need someone to try to fix them or change them to fit inside someone else’s ideal, but someone who’ll just love them, exactly as they are. Someone who will pay attention to their needs, support them in their interests, and respect their individuality. In the end, what they need is a parent who will stand up and say, “You know what, I’m on your side.”
When I first began writing this post, I was going to share my experiences as a parent to a child that everyone wanted to label from the time he was a toddler. But I’ve decided it’s not my story to tell. It’s his story, to eventually share or not share however he sees fit. I am not in his head, and I am not in his body. I’m just lucky enough to be his mom.
I can, however, tell you what it’s like to be me. I can tell you what it’s like to have the labels I’ve crossed out up above (which, by the way, are real words I’ve heard to describe myself at various times in my life). I can tell you that I am not those labels. I can tell you that I’m just me… with flaws and warts and awesomeness just like anyone else. I can tell you that I’ve learned that the minute I let myself get defined by a label is the minute that my life gets smaller, and the minute that the world gets a little less colorful and a little less free. It’s the minute that doors close instead of open, and the minute that the glass that was once half-full suddenly becomes bone dry.
I don’t want that for myself, and I don’t want it for my kids.
And so, we celebrate being authentically US. We celebrate differences. We recognize and embrace the fact that those differences that school or society might tell us are weird or crazy or wrong… are actually something pretty darn wonderful.
I am with you sister! I was labeled as gifted and had a ton of pressure placed on me to always perform over and above everyone else and be on the top- even at a school for the gifted. Then when my oldest was in school I started getting comments that she was too dreamy and needed to focus on schoolwork but ignore friends who wanted to chat… it was just too much. I understand that people want everything to fit in neat little boxes, but the grand majority of kids just need freedom to be themselves!
I was in both places at different points in my school career…. the one expected to perform above and beyond, and the one getting chastised for being too dreamy and distracted and not paying enough attention to schoolwork. It is exhausting and hurtful and unfair, and I am SO GLAD that I am no longer in school and that I can live and learn in freedom!
Yes!!!
I have been asked numerous times if my 6 year old is on meds, with the tone of “if she’s not, she needs to be.” I think “Why? So YOU can be more comfortable with who she is?” It doesn’t work that way. Society tries to normalize everything.
Yes, that is exactly it… people are uncomfortable with anyone ‘different’. But we’re ALL different in our own ways, and I say thank God for that! 🙂
I’m not sure if I understand this. Are you saying mental illness in kids doesn’t exist? Because if you are, I have to completely disagree with you. Mental illness is a real, chronic illness that affects children and adults and needs to be treated the same way you’d treat other chronic illnesses, such as diabetes.
I do agree that way too many kids are on medicines just to make the parents and/or teachers jobs easier, but that isn’t to say that all medications for kids with mental illness is wrong.
Thanks for saying that – I was thinking the same thing. Loving my child unconditionally, helping her find ways to live in the world joyfully, did not cure her OCD – she needed medication for that. It was seriously affecting her quality of life, and medication gave her herSELF back. It didn’t make her a mindless zombie, or just like everyone else; it helped her personality SHINE, without that debilitating illness.
Karen, exactly. I don’t disagree! You DID love her, and help her find what she needed, and supported her, and gave her the tools (and in this case the medication) to be HER. I’m glad that it was a success for her.
I’m not anti-medication when medication is the answer. I’m anti- medication is ALWAYS the answer, because for many, many people, it is not. When I was on psychotropic drugs, I WAS a mindless zombie.
No, I’m not saying I don’t think they exist. But I do think they are way over diagnosed, and WAY over medicated.
I was on Ritalin for nearly all of my school years. Think I’m bucking the system much now? 🙂
You, a system-bucker?? Nah….. 😉
I love this post. Thank you for writing it!
Love Love Love this post! Ive had family members start telling me my children had ADD or ADHD when they were 4 MONTHS old because they were active babies.. Of course if they are active there HAD to be a problem. One of my family members has a child whos active and shes already saying the child has ADHD (the baby is only 6 MONTHS old).. My oldest is quiet among strangers so there of course has to be a problem right? She doesn’t talk enough so I need to put her into school so she is forced to interact with people..
Ok, if you can’t tell its a hot topic in my house. I really really don’t like labels. Ive been living with them all my life.. now my kids are being labeled. Can’t we all understand that we are all different and thank goodness for that. Life would be so darn boring if we were all the same.
6 months old?! I just don’t even have any words for that….
I have recently gone through this realization myself. My daughter was put through the label ringer while she was in public school and unfortunately I thought I was helping her at the time. Since I took her out of school 1 1/2 years ago (wow, can’t believe it’s been that long already) and have allowed her to follow her own heart and passions, aka unschooling, she has blossomed. The labels have been thrown out the window and we have never looked back. In her case she just wasn’t being allowed to be herself and it almost completely crushed her self-esteem. There are days I look at her and think “Welcome Back My Little Snuggle Bug” 🙂
Love this, thanks for sharing!
I AM Me.. and I am on Prozac.. THANK GOD there IS Prozac!!!! Thank God there are hormones for me to take.. Without these things I would be a shell of a person.. Constantly depressed and even in pain (Prozac also helps with fibro). I guess either way I would still be “me” but I am a MUCH happier with myself “me” because of DRUGS…
Love this! I have two sons that could be labelled, but we choose not to label them. They are who they are, in all their quirkiness. I’ll never forget my mom writing to me and criticizing how “shy” my 2nd oldest son was and expressing her concern about his lack of friends. And in the same letter telling me about my friend becoming a Grandma, since her son’s girlfriend just had a baby. I did the quick math. My son was 18 at the time, my friend’s son, 16. And my mom thinks that my son should be more social? What, cause he’s not fathering a child like my friend’s son was? Geesh……