That's So Inappropriate

There’s a word in the Lynch household that is used rather often. I wouldn’t have thought much of this word even a few weeks ago, but for some reason, its presence has buzzed around my ear lately like a fly-by gnat. Not annoying, but just enough to get my attention.

The word? “Inappropriate.” 

When my daughters used this word as littler wee-ones, it never failed to crack me up. Hearing a five-year-old use any word too big for her mouth is always fantastic, but to hear one say, Pop pop, don’t say ‘butt.’ That’s inappropriate . . . well, now, that’s pure adorableness gold.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed a difference, a shift in my response from adoring to slightly unsettling. I can't help but realizing that this shift comes right alongside my girls’ rapidly advancing maturity. For them, there’s a shift, too. No longer does That’s Inappropriate mean something forbidden, something wrong in their worldview. What it means now is something along the lines of I know that’s wrong or feels weird to me, but I don’t know why and I don’t think I want to know. Or maybe I do. Why are the grownups laughing? What’s going on with my understanding of the world around me?!

Take, for instance, our dog. A couple of years ago, my eight year old, giddy on the high of first-time puppy ownership, yelled for my attention. I found her standing in the den, giggling hilariously, Fergus the puppy going to town on her little leg. “Look, Mama! He’s hugging my leg over and over again! He loves me!”

Fast forward to present. Same daughter, now a goofy eleven year old, rough-housing with said dog, stops suddenly to chastise him for this (now, thankfully, infrequent) behavior. “Fergus! No! Bad boy. That’s totally inapporpriate!”

A line has been drawn: the line of understanding. It’s a thick, fuzzy, foggy line; it’s a big patch of dry sand, where footprints and sandcastles can’t exist, right next to the wet sand, plaything of youth. She knows enough now, thanks to her growing brain, sex ed, television we probably shouldn’t let her watch, and Pop Pop, to realize that there is something she just knows is not right. But she also knows enough to know that she has no idea what that is.

Inappropriate. Why such a negative word for such natural phenomenon? For me, with my daughters, I’ve been listening for it and swatting at it with my own attempts at understanding, and finally, finally, I’ve come to this: “That’s inappropriate” is an off switch; it’s the way to stop the conversation, the image on the screen, the dog humping your leg . . . and thereby stop yourself from thinking too much about something that just doesn’t feel right. In itself, it’s its own misunderstanding. If something is inappropriate, we stop ourselves from walking that thick fuzzy line, through the unpleasantness and toward understanding. “That’s inappropriate” keeps us safe.

For my daughters, for kids of all ages, that’s okay. That’s called learning your own boundaries, something we all hope the youth of the world can do. We give them permission to ease themselves into what is and is not appropriate because they are, after all, kids.

Sometimes, though, we have to give them a little shove. Recently, my older daughter was MORTIFIED when I took her bra shopping. Out of respect for her (and soul-numbing fear that she will somehow read this post), I will not go into details, but I will tell you that she pretty much summed up the entire two-hour experience with a big, fat That’s Inappropriate, symbolized by a whole bunch of eye-rolls, several minor yells, and a full-on sprint away from the counter at checkout. I was there, though, to help her realize that no, it’s not inappropriate. It’s life. It’s growing up.

How did I do this? Well, I pulled out the only weapon I really ever carry with me: humor. I tried to make her laugh at herself a bit, loosen the mood. When it didn’t work, I got the eyerolls. But when it did, I got the shy smile, aimed toward her flip-flops, that demonstrates both processing and acceptance.

And no matter what, I got a kick out of it all. Sometimes, you’ve gotta just make yourself laugh. So when she was hiding out about 100 yards away pretending to get water at the water fountain, I waited in line for the older gentleman to ring up my size 32AA bras. Once, I caught her peeking up at me. That’s when I reached both hands to my chest, made little circles with them, and mouthed, “She’s getting her boobies,” quite dramatically. Of course, she didn’t realize that he wasn’t even looking at me. That was my little secret for the moment. I told her later, after I had stopped laughing at how funny I was. 

Was I being inappropriate? Me? Never. Was I perhaps teaching my daughter a slight lesson about messing with me in public? Maybe. Truly, though, I was trying to help her cross through that foggy line and emerge on the other side with understanding as the souvenir. The trip seems lighter with laughter.

As grown-ups, I propose we strive to constantly re-evaluate what we consider inappropriate. For some (ahem, me), political discussions seem inappropriate. So do religious ones. I know why. It’s because I get too nervous about discussing a point in which I’m not well-versed for fear of being called out, not knowing my shit, not having a valid point. Certainly, I could benefit from the understanding that broaching these inappropriate topics could bring. Probably. Maybe.

Earlier this year, I had the overwhelming honor to communicate and work briefly with David Jay. David is a photographer who is slowly and powerfully gaining world respect and recognition for his SCAR project. SCAR stands for Surviving Cancer. Absolute Reality. His is a series of moving, passionate, and real photographs of women who are on the other side of breast cancer. And they have the scars to prove it.

I had stumbled on David’s photographs in the same way I stumble on most of life’s truths: on Facebook. It’s hard to write about the effect they had on me, not because I’m quiet about the emotions they brought (and continue to bring) to the surface, but because, for a long time, I wasn’t quite sure what those emotions were or how to describe them. Here was a man who was putting to print the most secret, private part of me, for to share these photographs with people--as I felt compelled to do--was to show them myself naked. Literally and figuratively. Walking around without breasts had become a whisper of who I was, my own absolute reality. David’s photographs ripped off my clothes and invited others to click “like” at what they saw.

Or to be confused. Or surprised. Or, even, afraid.

After my surgery and subsequent healing, my own daughters, after all, had no longer been able to be with me when I undressed. A nudist by nature, I was profoundly altered by their response to my naked body. Nights spent putting our pjs on together were no more; instead, if they saw it was time for me to change, they practically ran to their room, often shutting my door behind them, lest I forget to do so myself. They are little and could not, therefore, be casual about their aversion. My younger daughter, nestling with me in my chair one night and resting her head on my chest, told me she missed my breasts, that I was too boney and not comfy anymore. The same daughter, with her trademark full-disclosure honesty policy, instructed me once to change clothes in our hotel room bathroom, alone, away from them. She waved her hand in my chest’s general direction and explained, “That’s just creepy.”

These things crushed me for more reasons than I could count. I was less of a woman to my girls. I was a mystery. I scared them.

That is, until months after I first discovered David Jay’s photographs. On this particular night, I was re-examining his extensive collection on line. One by one, I clicked through the photographs, until I slowly became aware that someone was looking over my shoulder. It was my daughter.

“What are you doing, mama?” she asked, quietly.

“Looking at these amazing photographs.” Long silence. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” she said softly, so I continued on. Eventually, we reached a photograph of a beautiful woman, arms stretched high over her head, that revealed her penetrating eyes and double-mastectomy scars.

“That looks like you!” my little girl practically gasped. I agreed, and we sat there in silence until my other daughter came over, timidly, ready to see, too. They were safe there with me, computer screen in my lap, and they saw something new in that woman who looked like their mother.

A few days later, getting in my comfy clothes for the night, I gave my usual precaution to my little girl: “I’m getting ready to change, honey.” Our unspoken agreement was yes, it's okay for you to leave now.

“That’s okay, mama. I don’t need to go.” So she stayed. And we talked, and we giggled. And neither of my girls has looked away since.

David Jay’s photographs have been deemed by some as inappropriate. They are too real, too honest, and show too much. There are nipples. There are lack-of-nipples. There are the curves of a woman’s shape. There are the glaring absences where a woman’s shape should be.

This winter, while working on a writing project with David about SCAR, I discussed as much with him. The topic came up as he explained that only on-line articles ever showed his work. Not one print piece had ever shown a photograph. As one Italian journalist put it, her editor chose not to include the images in the story about SCAR because “he says the images are too much strong, that he makes feel bad.”

Despite the hilarity of the accompanying translation problems, his statement says a lot about what we, as grownups, see as inappropriate in the world. For kids, facing the inappropriate may be scary because they’re learning something that they didn’t know before. Growing up is, after all, scary for us all. It makes feel bad. But it’s best that we all do it, no? Was the Italian editor afraid of that blurry line, the one that allows us to cross into understanding? Did he turn the switch to “off?” I think he did. Luckily, my daughters did not. They were pretty damn brave. 

And I am pretty damn grateful.