Sex Object, page 14
“Shy” is the word we use with her; “mutism” is the word her therapist uses.
Layla’s hope was that by putting this picture and declaration where all of her friends would see it, they would understand, just a little, why she doesn’t talk to any of them. Not to say hello, not to say thank you, not a word. Just silence.
Sometimes, when she is feeling jolly, Layla will make hand signals to her friends, nod yes or no or make clicking or whistling sounds when she wants someone’s attention. To her best friend, the girl she is most comfortable with in her class, she will mouth sentences.
Most days, my daughter chatters away with me, telling me about school and her best friend—I love her so so much, Mommy. She talks about her imaginary friends: Super Bad Guy Snowmen who litter our street with ice that makes it difficult for her to walk. She tells me about her boogers, her poops, her toys, and the dreams she has at night (ladybugs on beaches). Sometimes, she wakes up laughing—not giggling, but in fits of hysterical laughter. She can never remember what was so funny in her dream.
I’ve come to believe that the hours of silence she endures in school make it so that by the end of the day she is desperate to get her words out, sentences flowing into each other without stopping. She has always been articulate, ahead of other children with when she began to speak and the kinds of words and complex sentences she could put together at an early age.
That is why, when she was two years old, in day care but not speaking to other children, we didn’t think much of it. It made sense to us that she only talked to the teachers; her friends weren’t even putting sentences together. She told us this directly when asked why she wouldn’t talk to her friends: They don’t know how to talk, Mama. And so parental pride blinded us.
When she was three and still silent we chalked it up to the gender breakdown in the class—mostly boys, loud and exuberant. Layla was still very small for her age and preferred quiet play so again, we didn’t worry.
But when she was four years old and in a quiet and supportive Quaker school, Layla told us she couldn’t talk to other children that she had known for months because when she tried, it felt like she was meeting them for the first time. She told us she was too afraid.
The diagnosis was selective mutism—an anxiety disorder in which children will go mute in certain settings or with certain people. For Layla it means she will only talk with adults, no children, and only those grown-ups whom she knows and likes.
It is difficult to explain the strangeness of never having seen your daughter speak to another child.
Once or twice she has forgotten her rules for herself and slipped up, saying a word or two. When her father and I have joyously pointed out these occasions she’s gone mad, insisting that she never said anything. That we imagined it or the words were meant for an adult in the room. She does not waver—whether it’s out of fear or an unwillingness to believe she is capable of speaking, I don’t know.
She has friends; for that we are grateful. Her friends know Layla doesn’t talk but that doesn’t stop them from jumping on her bed during a playdate. Little girls whom she holds hands with and hugs, one little girl who writes her love notes day after day with their names in hearts together. They tell each other I love you by pointing at themselves, then making a heart with their hands, and then pointing at the other person. If they are feeling a lot of love they will end the hand sequence by holding their arms out wide so as to show the depth of their feelings.
To see your child who has so much to say go silent at the sight of a friend is just pure pain. To watch her create her own sign language to help her communicate rather than use her voice is terrifying, because you can’t help but think of things to come—some silent future where she cannot stand up for herself or, worse, adequately express her joy. And while other five-year-olds are kind and understanding, children do not stay that nice for that long.
And so you do what the specialists tell you to do, all the while knowing that this is a thing that you passed on to her—not the silence perhaps, but the fear behind it. That your genetic propensity for trauma and anxiety is the only thing she got from you. Everything else, everything good, is her father’s. Her blond hair and green eyes that make strangers believe you are the nanny rather than her mother, her intelligence, her humor, and her curiosity are all characteristics you find unrecognizable in yourself. The worry, though, you recognize.
When Layla was born, I had this feeling that she was not really mine but all Andrew’s somehow. As if I could birth a child that carried no pieces of me. But now, with this, I know she is so much mine, and for that I wish I could tell her I am sorry.
Sometimes I hate myself because I want to scream, Just fucking talk I know you can do it, because I cannot understand how it is possible that she literally cannot get the words out. But then I see her cover her mouth with her hands at even a kind suggestion that she just try to be brave and I know it’s not just willfulness that’s holding her back.
And so we bleed money for therapy that our insurance company won’t cover—money for phone calls with teachers, travel time for her therapist to get from Manhattan to her school, check-in sessions with us. We create “brave talking” charts and collect prizes to give her when she speaks during a panicked moment. I scream at the big boys on the playground who bully my silent child while their asshole Brooklyn parents watch apathetically.
A friend gives Layla a “fairy door” for her birthday that we slide up against the wall and tell her will bring a fairy to her room while she sleeps. I write a note in crayon from the fairy urging her to be brave, attaching a small gold ring I wore as a child that I tell her is magic and will help her get her words out. She wears it on a necklace and one day she is able to say the ABCs to her teacher while looking at a classmate.
If Andrew and I have anything, it is words—sometimes so many of them we talk over each other in an effort to get them out. I have so many I need to take to paper every day. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really in a room but just floating smiles and words filling up the space around me.
Layla, though, is there. She wants to talk about how much she’s growing, how much she weighs, how much space she is taking up. Watch me dance, watch me clap, look at this sweater I have—it’s pink! When we are with my parents in upstate New York she brings me sage leaves from my mother’s garden and instructs me to smell them and to rub them against my face.
We travel to California for Thanksgiving to see Andrew’s parents, taking her out of school for two weeks to play with her grandparents in their yard with lemon trees, sew outfits for her dolls, and delight in the small army of rubber ducks that line the bathtub in my husband’s childhood home. There’s a persimmon tree outside where crows pick at the fruits, thrilling Layla and terrifying me.
The first night we are there we go to a restaurant and, like her new therapist advises us to, tell her that she can have whatever dessert she wants if she can just order it from the waitress. She asks if she can look at me while she says the words loud enough for the server to hear, and I tell her, pained, that she cannot. I know she will just be pretending that she is talking to me.
As the meal goes on, Layla gets more jittery. She wants me to read her the dessert choices, and I do—they have an ice-cream sundae. She asks to sit on my lap and has me go over exactly what this might look like. I will say, “Excuse me, miss, my daughter would like to order something.” You just need to look at her and say two words: “Ice cream.” She shifts on my lap as the woman approaches. I ask the waitress if Layla can order something and her mouth moves but no words come out. I tell her she needs to speak louder.
She whispers, Ice cream, but too low for the waitress to hear. I tell her one more time, You need to say it louder, and as the words come out so does a choke of a cry as the waitress looks at us strangely and I yelp and hug her close. She reaches for her father and weeps, smiling, as the woman in the black and white outfit turns around to bring her chocolate ice cream.
ENDNOTES (2008–2015)
Fishy Cunt? Censor your smelly twat, not my free speech.
Email, April 22, 2008
You and your cult are the majority of the reason that women are hated. You can’t tease the poor men and then yell at them for drooling. You don’t see men walking around exposing bits of their private parts all the time and even if they did I would expect to see most women staring and drooling if they were attractive.
Email, May 31, 2008
GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE ME DINNER, BITCH.
Tiny brained women, why did we ever let them think they are someone?
Email, June 8, 2008
Your site is FUCKING BULLSHIT! Get in the kitchen where women should be and start cookin! No but on a serious note, you guys suck.
Email, November 6, 2008
Do my dishes and clean my house!!!!
Email, December 20, 2008
I looked at your photo, and I wasn’t attracted. Why not? You are a fine-looking young woman. After a while of looking at the photo I realised why. You seem to have “sleepy eyes”.
It is a fairly serious issue. I knew a man at work who had real “hooded eyes”, his eyelids were half-closed most of the time, it looked really evil. A far more extreme case than your photo. To “take a good photo” is a skill learned by actresses and maybe you should learn it.
Email, May 12, 2009
fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you
Email, August 9, 2009
Don’t look so serious next time when you post your picture. I bet you have a beautiful smile :)
Email, November 19, 2009
Hallo, I saw your videos at youtube. Never thought that a feminist could have such a charming smile and appear that friendly. What are those videos for? Greetings
Email, February 18, 2010
Sometime ago I sent you a message expressing some objections and some questions I had about one of your YouTube videos that I had recently watched at the time. It has come to my attention whilst cleaning out my inbox that you never responded and that saddened me a bit. It distresses me the see that after all that talk you did not reply and I assume it was due to lack of time or not getting the letter rather than lack of courage to calmly discuss your principles with an intelligent and verbose male.
Email, April 11, 2010
Jessica you are having a baby? I thought you didn’t believe in having babies . . . just killing them. I feel sorry for your child who will learn to devalue human life
Email, May 1, 2010
You, Jessica, are the prototype bitter liberal woman in this article. One can only imagine the venom dripping off of your keyboard after you finished this angry screed.
Email, May 29, 2010
I had abortions because I thought it was a birth control option. NOW I am a murderer, if someone is niaeve or cruel enough to abort a sweet baby, they are uninformed or selfish. That’s the bottom line.
Email, November 10, 2010
So you pple do slut walk? Look at yourself, fat elephant, you and the likes of you don’t need to worry about getting raped. In LA, you’d have to pay for that, dumb broads. Hope your children will get violently, brutally raped. And yes, I’m a feminist and female. Just the trash like you and your website is polluting the movment and doing disservice, ugly fat pig.
Email, June 4, 2011
Looking over various photos of you something became startling apparent. This is the most flattering and you are still homely. Which begs the question—why are so many hardcore feminists so unattractive?
Email, September 20, 2011
Show me a woman or girl, and i will show you someone with issues. no respect for themselves and their bodies.
Email, March 15, 2012
I think you need to be gagged. All we do is fuck and chuck women nowadays because of the rhetoric of cunts like you. I hope you perish in a gasoline explosion induced car crash.
Email, April 11, 2012
I just read Full Frontal Feminism and it sucked! I am not a mysoginist or a hater. Your book just really sucked.
Email, July 27, 2012
It seems as if you are ungrateful. Everything is built by men. Men even invented tampons. Please grow up and become a lady rather than a little girl.
Email, July 28, 2012
Feminists remind me of little girls who cry because they didn’t get their way. If you wanted to be important, you should have been born with a penis. (:
Email, August 8, 2012
You really do need psychotherapy. You need to explore your childhood and the effect your parents had on you.
Email, September 1, 2012
Do you see women overtaking control of men in years to come? I am curious . . . Please feel free to email . . .
Email, November 28, 2012
[Jessica Valenti] has achieved mainstream acceptance with her books and articles in the Washington Post and The Atlantic. Surprisingly, she got married, but to a man who was awarded a “beta of the month” prize. She was somewhat attractive for one picture in her life, but she looks nothing like that now.
“The Nine Ugliest Feminists in America,” ReturnofKings.com, January 5, 2013
Your book is silly. And you are silly.
Email, January 10, 2013
@JessicaValenti: Twitter friends: Anyone know a country where tampons are free or somehow subsidized? 8 August 2014
@amcphee: @jessicavalenti I think she meant where they sell them oversized, for her giant gaping vagina
@skzdalimit: @jessicavalenti If you’re so worried abt tampon availability, maybe U need 2 stick a few fingers in UR you-know-what to stem the bleeding.
@spergonwynn: @jessicavalenti cunt
@watchdougals: @jessicavalenti Yeah it’s called the Middle East where they sew your vagina shut for being a loud mouth
@jhendricks2301: @jessicavalenti don’t think it’s on part to being stoned, do you if you can’t afford tampons use an old fxxking sock
@bobolewsky: @jessicavalenti Why haven’t you had your ovaries, etc. removed yet?
@mrsugarbutt: @jessicavalenti here’s a thought: get married. Then your husband can pay for it. As long as your putting out . . .
You’re one heck of a disgusting ugly looking hag. What you need is a big fat dick inside you to set you straight. Thankfully, you’re nowhere near being my type. I hope some mack truck crashes head on into you.
