In Search of a Safe Space

Adia Writes
4 min readMay 26, 2022

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We’re supposed to be our children’s first safe space. Don’t fuck it up.

My twin (The Boy) and me back in November 2021 out celebrating his 11th birthday.

Note: I started writing this in May 2016, when my son was six months away from turning six years old. Much of it still rings true. I don’t recall what trip I was taking when I witnessed the child I mention early in this story, but shit still applies. It has taken me some time to come back to this because I have had to face my shortcomings as a parent and human being.

I’ve called my son a jerk before (not to his face, of course). He questions and challenges everything and has reveled in being a contrarian. Even though I want him to question everything (hell, his name means “messenger prince,” he’s got to question things to HAVE a message), it’s difficult and frustrating when it feels like his father and I (mostly me) get the brunt of those challenges. I think most parents would agree that they want their children to grow to be assertive adults. As parents, you want your child to learn how to advocate for themselves, to speak up for themselves when they or someone else experience an injustice. You want your child to ask questions, to explore, to want to know the “why” of things. We become our children’s first tests in self-advocacy, and I’ve entirely accepted that we are his first safe space for challenging things.

Sitting in the airport back in 2016, I watched a little girl getting ready to celebrate her second birthday, tormented her parents with scratches and screams, and her newfound autonomy in repeating the word “no,” even when there was nothing to protest. Mom and Dad informed other waiting passengers that she had hit her terrible twos early. Dad even said that this was payback from his childhood when he was a complete jerk to his parents. He said he caused a lot of trouble and never gave his parents a break.

His words stayed with me while I sat in the airport, while I traveled, and even today, six years later. It has made me reflect on my time as a child.

Although I don’t remember, my mom has said that I was a little social butterfly early on. At events with her and my father, I’d walk up to people, ask them if they knew my parents, and then walk them over to introduce them if they didn’t. I was always up for meeting new people.

Fast forward a couple of years, and that began to change. I had seen/experienced things that no child or any other human being should, and I was a bit more reserved in my approach to people, including my family. There was a lot of distrust. Still is. I tended to hold back rather than talk or learn to express myself. Coming from a Black family that emphasized the belief that children should be seen and not heard in both actions and words, I often chose to be quiet and not engage at all to protect myself. Not all of my family operated this way — my mother has always sought out my opinion on things and genuinely showed interest in who I am as a person. But for the majority of my extended family, what they said was the rule, regardless of whether they were wrong, and it was difficult for me to reconcile this.

Many times, my inability to make these things coexist — my need to express myself and the adults’ demand that they be “respected” no matter what — caused me to hold much in, letting them steep, boil, and eventually pour out in anger, tears, and any other way my frustration seemed to manifest itself at the time. I often chose to retreat with music or a book, avoiding interactions with people whose demands just didn’t make sense to me. I spent a significant amount of time avoiding the adults in my family because I did not want to deal with another energy-draining encounter.

Again, my mom was not in the majority. She valued my opinion. She allowed me to talk and contribute, and when I needed to retreat to recharge, I was never short on music and books for company. I continue to be appreciative of her mothering today.

As an adult, I have continued this practice. I avoid large family functions and experience those that I choose to interact with one-on-one. This February (2022), I spent an entire day catching up with an older cousin. It was a beautiful exchange, and I think the fact that we’ve gotten older allowed for a genuine, healthy day of interaction.

So although I’ve called The Boy a jerk in the past (again, not to his face), I’ve developed a higher level of patience for him and his need to question/challenge. It is vital to children’s development that they feel safe enough to ask questions and for those questions to be answered. Uncomfortable as some of those questions might be, it is my duty as a parent to help my child navigate his existence until he is ready to set out on his own to continue becoming the fully recognized, brilliant, and beautiful human that he has already shown himself to be.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nayesha A. Pruitt is a licensed therapist, School Counselor, adjunct professor, writer, mentor and entrepreneur. She’s also the Co-Founder, Consultant, and COO of Project Restore Initiative, an organization dedicated to supporting schools and other institutions in creating safe spaces for staff and those they serve.

You can contact Nayesha via Medium or LinkedIn. If she ever decides to get back on FB or IG, she’ll let you know. 😬

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