The child belongs to the parent.
The child’s thoughts are subject to approval,
The child’s actions under authoritarian rule.
Bedtime, mealtime, doctor’s visits, school,
playmates, inside or outside, work time or playtime;
all regulated by others.
Discipline applied with no guaranteed appeal.
Childhood is a time of fierce lack of control.
No freedom even to choose to speak or stay silent.
No choices at all until the child grows tall.
Each birthday a gift in itself that freedom is coming.
Children count the days in years.
We all remember those days.
Those days have returned for women.
Their lives are no longer their own.
Their choices are not free.
Their silence is demanded and enforced by law.
Their privacy is invaded by others’ will.
Their paths are reduced to only those others allow.
Women are now punishable by law.
Women are not children.
Women do not play at life.
Women are life, and that life is their own.
No legal argument can change that truth.
No man can return us to his control.
annarino writes 