ONEYA: Saying Yes to saying No

I was five years old when I said my first big ‘No’.

It was during a music practical test that was being conducted by Madam Rosaline, a very strict teacher.

One by one, we walked up to her.

“Sing the National Anthem,” she ordered each of us. A similar “exam” was being conducted in the classroom next door too and the air must have been riddled with the innocent voices of ridiculous-sounding children.

My mother tells me that I hated singing, so I devised the perfect reason not to sing when it was my turn.

“I am not going to sing; my mother is also a teacher!” I confidently told the rather bewildered teacher, folding my hands behind my back in defiance.

As a child, I had always imagined that being the child of a teacher earned me a certain immunity -- from doing tasks that did not please me, for example.

‘RESPECT’

The other pupils must have looked at me with “respect” but this quickly turned to sympathy when Madam Rosaline asked me to sit alone in the corner (so as not to contaminate the other pupils with rebellion ideas, I imagine) and summoned my mother, who worked in a neighbouring school.

A fuming Mother took me home because I was “suspended”, and spanked my bottom.

She narrated to me a horror story that I remember to date about how the sun was actually God’s eye and that it would come down and melt me in my sleep if I did not sing as required in school.

That night I cried myself to sleep and did not need to be woken up to go to school the next day to atone for my sins.

Later, Mother would show me my grades. I scored the lowest in my class because of kichwa ngumu.

Needless to say that my No’s became fewer and fewer after that. I wanted to be a good girl. I was socialised to be a good girl and the fewer No’s I said, the more difficult they became to say when I needed to say them.

In retrospect, there are some jobs, friendships and romantic relationships I should have said No to immediately they came up. I could have saved myself from a lot of heartache.

AFFECTS WOMEN WORLD OVER

Saying No is a difficult thing for women the world over regardless of race, religion, economic or cultural background. I first came across the phrase ‘Saying yes to saying no’ in the book Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes.

Shonda Rhimes is an extremely successful TV producer, screenwriter, and author. She is the force behind shows such as “Grey's Anatomy”, “Private Practice”, and “Scandal”.

One would imagine that such a successful, powerful woman would have no trouble saying no. To the contrary, it was only after she embarked on a whole year of saying yes to herself and to opportunities, and to saying no to things that were toxic to her life (including toxic friendships) that she was able to admit that she had trouble saying No.

HURLED INSULTS

In the book, she recounts an incident where an ex-friend hurled insults at her when she (Shonda) said No to lending her money.

It reminded me too of the number of times I said yes to people asking for loans they knew they would never refund.

In an article posted on the Psychology Today website, titled“Why Women Have a Hard Time Saying No”, Dr Kathryn Lively writes that women have trouble saying No because we often play to get along whereas men often play to win. She adds that women will often choose not to say No when someone’s feelings are at stake. It is just how we are socialised but it can be unlearned.

In the ongoing murder case against journalist Jacque Maribe and her fiancé Joseph Irungu aka Joe Jowi, her father is quoted as saying that his daughter is only guilty of love. That may very well be the case, but from reading articles about the gruesome murder, I believe behind the “love victim” label is the inability to just say NO.

I know that there are many No’s that I should have said too in my life. It would certainly mean fewer mediocrities and heartaches.

I think back of myself as a tough five-year-old and wonder what kind of person I would have become if my mother and my teachers had allowed me to say No more often. Would I have been a more assertive and confident person? Would I have made better choices in life?

The “nice girl” rhetoric they fed us on ingrained in us a disturbing desire to be liked and the resultant weakened NO muscle.

Now that I’m raising a daughter, I am letting more No’s leave her mouth than my mother ever did. I try to remember that I’m not raising a robot every time she is rebellious.

But I am also learning to tame her No’s because I’m not raising a little monster either. And who knows? Maybe as she grows older, she will say more and more YESes to saying No.

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