I was doing my makeup today while my brother was fixing his hair. It was quiet and we were both busy doing ourselves up, but after I put on mascara I noticed that Nico was staring at me. “Did you know that some guys wear mascara?” he said and I was like pfft, yeah, of course, dude. I know guys who put on way more than I do. Nico just nodded and continued with his hair. A few minutes later, he brought it up again. “I know a guy who played in my baseball team that would put on mascara. It was … cool, I guess.” And after a moment of awkward silence, I turned to him and went: “Nico, do you wanna try some on?”
Yep. He did. He told me so after a little bit of asking, but he felt intimidated to try it on himself. So, I grabbed a really natural looking mascara and lightly put on one coat for him. It wasn’t all cute and serene, btw, it was very us (”fuck, don’t poke my eye out, bro” “nico, are you fuckin serious, i’m not gonna” “aaah, fuck, you’re gonna poke me!” “stop moving!”). But afterward he looked at himself in the mirror and was hesitant. He said he didn’t know if he liked it. And i just shrugged because…I guess, I didn’t want him to think anything wild about it. He could wear mascara or not, but I didn’t want him to be insecure about it all the same. “Well, that’s fine,” I said. “It’s no big. You just wipe it off and it’s gone. You want me to pass you a wipe?”
But he kept staring at himself in the mirror and he was like: No, actually…I like it. It makes my eyes pop. Then Nico turned around and waggled his eyebrows at me and went: bitches love my eyes. they won’t stand a chance now.
Today, Nico came into my room while I was doing my nails and he asked me what’s good with my mascara and I was like ???. Anyways, that was his form of asking for mascara again, checking himself out in the mirror for a minute and a half, and finally declaring: “I fucks with how this makes my eyes look”
uhhhh no offense but think about what you say to kids because like… when I was a kid all I heard was my friends saying “no one wants to hear you sing shut up” until fifth grade I was singing under my breath “we will rock you” by KISS because I had one of those toothtunes toothbrushes that played it and my teacher stopped me and was like… do that again. And I thought I was in trouble because no one wanted to hear me sing so I didn’t at first but she kinda coaxed me into it and once I sang it she was like “that’s good! That’s actually really good, sorry, I’m a little surprised! Wow!” And it literally changed my whole life I immediately ran off to try and join the talent show (I was too late) and I did honor choir and joined choir in 6th grade and here I am now, doing a bachelors in music education with an emphasis in voice, and looking at doing my masters in musical theater performance. I owe literally everything to the fact that my 5th grade math/homeroom teacher stopped me and made me sing a little for her and took that time to tell me that I was good at it. That was a 2 minute interaction that I doubt she even remembers but it literally changed my entire life.
tl;dr: the things you say can have the most profound effect on a kids life. Think about what you’re saying the next time you tell a kid something. You never know if that 30 second interaction is going to affect their life forever, so why not make it a good one, huh?
using “i’m gay” to justify yourself and your decisions is good and fun when it’s to defend your tacky outfit or your 3am impulse-buys on amazon but don’t let me catch you using it to defend your racism and transphobia babes!
punkpixel 