Stop being polite: and the responsibility boy moms have

Women's March in Washington D.C., 2017.

It feels like every few days something big hits the news that resurfaces trauma in myself and my clients. Lately, it all just feels “up.” With Cornell 7 combined with the memoir that I have been writing about my multiple traumas, and me being the mother of boys, this week has been a lot. My first reaction was “I need to keep talking to my boys about NOT being silent when something creepy is going on, or even said in a group.” After multiple talks with my boys and their amazing feminist identifying father, I still felt “up.” My way to work through things is writing, so here I go.

At the start of my memoir, I focus on a pivotal moment: my then six-year-old son, as we prepared for the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, asked, “Mommy, what is assault?” That one question peeled back layer upon layer of the complexities I faced as a mom of boys. Like many moms, I want to raise kind, ethical humans, without overwhelming my children with harsh realities too soon. Yet, the truth is, horrors like assault can—and do—happen to children that young. Some parents are forced into these conversations because of traumatic circumstances. And many boys of moms have moms with nervous systems riddled with remnants of sexual violence due to men. It’s complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. We ALL need to talk about this more, especially with our sons.

One added layer for many of us: our professions. Some women are afraid to be open about their trauma, and honestly that’s our right. Being open about it isn't exactly healing; it’s vulnerable, and many women fear professional backlash. I was once told, or warned rather, that suing a former bar owner for sexual harassment would make it harder for me to be hired in the future. A man told me that. I am so glad I didn't listen.  

As a therapist, I’m often seen as an expert—I’ve read all the books, both as a parent and as a professional trauma therapist. But when my six-year-old asked that question, I stumbled. What I understood then, and even more so now, is that I have to stumble through it all, for him, and for women. I need to invite him into these conversations so he doesn’t end up as one of the 50 boys on a group chat condoning rape through silence. We “boy moms” have to step up.

Being “out there” with our stories, I truly understand from a felt-sense perspective how horrible it is when your story is public. This is my experience, not others, so please don’t misunderstand. It is extremely healing to be “out there” with trauma stories; it can also be re-traumatizing and life-altering, not in a good way. For example, my own kids could easily Google my name and discover a sexual harassment case (it was actually assault, but that’s a story for another blog post) I was involved in, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court. Even though it’s under a different last name, they can still find it easily. At ages six and four, my children knew it mattered deeply to me to attend the Women’s March—because I was an assault survivor, but “mommy, what is assault?”

So, how do you explain sexual assault to a six-year-old? Somehow, I managed, and while that conversation remains between us, what’s important is that it happened—and continues to happen as my boys grow older. With their father, I make it a point to talk regularly about consent, assault, sexual pressure, dating, healthy vs. unhealthy relationships, and more. As they mature, I include real cases—like this past week’s discussion about the Cornell 7.

This is my plea to all you boy moms: have these conversations. Teach your children not to be complicit with silence. We must break this “polite society” nonsense and show our boys that sometimes speaking up isn't just allowed, but required—even if it means being uncool, bullied, or an outcast. It is their job, yes, their job to say something, do something, call someone. It’s their job to pull other boys off a girl who is drunk, to kick down a door if they see someone take an intoxicated girl into a room, to call the police, to break up a party—to be the “not cool” one with pride, because that’s what being a good human means. It can start in group texts. Teach them to call out other boys for misogynistic statements. I know for my oldest, I noticed so many racist statements where the white boys had no idea that what they were saying was racist, but my mixed child sure did, and his silence made him uncomfortable. As a somatic therapist, we processed that sensation in his body, and he now knows that feeling is something that needs to speak up to feel heard, and that what comes after is the possibility of being seen as ‘not cool.’ A risk he is now willing to take because he saw, over and over again, these texts with racist memes trying to be funny. He simply stated, “not funny, actually racist" once and did notice he felt better. Thankfully, being in high school with kids that look more like him has helped his body feel safer from those awkward exchanges. Witnessing those tests while he was in middle school was hard, but I couldn’t help thinking that it was those kids’ parents who also didn’t know that those memes, those statements, or those times of cultural appropriation are extremely harmful. We still have a long way to go, and I hope parents are finally catching on.

What gets in the way of these parents passing down these lessons is a fear of not being “in” . The popular parent groups. They happen everywhere. For many, sending your kids to school feels like a reintroduction to middle school or high school. We need to shift away from caring about what other parents think. Let’s all agree to raise good humans and stop prioritizing social climbing or looking the other way when something’s wrong. It’s not enough to say, “Not my son.” Do better. Teach your boys not to rape, and to fight against the locker room, frat-boy culture that still dominates college campuses and high school parties.

The only reason I allowed my oldest son to join the high school football team was because of something the coach includes in his training. It’s not weights or plays; it’s workshops and lectures about consent.  The coach spoke openly about consent every Saturday, bringing in speakers—including an assault survivor—to teach the boys how to speak up and be a part of the solution. The high school partnered (in the past) with the nonprofit started by Brenda Tracy to help bring these important conversations directly to the football team from someone who has been through what Jane Doe and Brenda have. Someone like me, and many of you reading this. Brenda’s brave way of talking openly about her assault, in the effort of preventing it from happening again by having the conversations many shy away from, is what we all need. To have a football coach invite this in, well, it made me check “yes” on the permission slip, and it honestly helped me continue to answer that 6-year-old's question, now almost 17. Brenda still does talks, and you can find her brave work here: https://brendatracy.com/ Unfortunately, she was sexually harassed while doing her work through her nonprofit, and you can read more about that on your own. I am just glad she continues to do the work, even without the nonprofit. It’s also important to point out that Brenda got so much criticism for SPEAKING UP from football lovers that she had to shut down her nonprofit. If you don’t know what I am writing about, please take time to look it up. Start here: https://www.wilx.com/2025/06/03/brenda-tracy-files-lawsuit-against-msu-trustees/#:~:text=(WILX)%20%2D%20Brenda%20Tracy%20has,%E2%80%9C

These conversations can be hard—I get it. As our kids grow, we keep revisiting that “what is assault?” question, layering in more detail and nuance as they’re ready. Only you know what makes sense for your child. But think about it: we don’t hesitate to warn our kids about kidnapping. We go out of our way to (accidentally) scare them into being careful, projecting our own fear in the process. So why is it different when it comes to rape? Why aren’t we, as boy moms, just as fired up about warning our sons about rape culture, and about being the helper instead of the hurter?

Part of the why is something I like to call “polite culture,” or sometimes “midwest nice.” We’re still struggling to shake off the grip of so-called polite culture, and this current administration—hiding behind “Christianity”—has pushed many people right back into silence. Politeness should never mean turning your back on someone in need, yet for years that’s been the framing, and it’s only getting worse. There is still such a thick energy around “that’s a them problem, so I will politely stay out of it” from mostly white America. Stop listening to messages saying “not my problem” and notice that it IS ALL OF OUR PROBLEM. And dare I say, your silence, or looking in the other direction, is a huge part of the problem. You model that for your kids as they grow up; they end up being one of the 50 silent boys on a text chain announcing the rape of an intoxicated woman. Am I pissing you off yet? Are you saying, “not my son!” in your head, or out loud? Good! Because it might be your son and you need to talk to him. I hope this upsets you; it is upsetting!

Polite society gets it wrong in so many ways. I remember once standing in line, holding my toddler son—who was born with a medical condition—when a mom approached us and, loudly, asked, “What happened to this baby? Was it a car accident?” My son immediately buried his head into me, trying to avoid even more attention. It was already hard enough for him to wear giant metal leg braces; now, everyone was staring. The other mom didn’t mean harm, but she caused it all the same.

In that moment, I had a choice: stay “polite” (or silent) and brush it off, or show my son I had his back and try to educate her. I risked being cast out of the “cool mom” group—which, honestly, I think I was—but I’d rather teach her that her loudness wasn’t helpful. I explained that while I understood her intention, my son has a lifelong medical condition and wants to just be a kid in braces—not “the kid all the parents feel sorry for.”

It comes down to energy—he’s always been sensitive to it. He hates pity; he wants connection. Feeling sorry for someone isn't a connection; it just highlights their difference and lets you move on with your day. So yes, I could have politely told her something to spare her the awkwardness, but instead I pulled her aside and explained that we prefer to discuss his private medical condition in private. “It’s hard when what he’s going through is so visible, but we’d appreciate it if next time she simply spoke to us on the side.” She turned bright red and barely spoke to me the rest of the year. That’s her stuff, not mine. I wonder if we could have been good friends. If she swallowed her pride and accepted the invite to get curious about her impact, versus being defensive or denying it, I bet we could have.

When I told family members about this, they said, “Jenny, maybe you should just let things go. It’s going to be a long, tough road if you keep this up every time.” But I refuse to buy into polite society’s bullshit. I’m here to encourage real human connection, not the kind of disconnection that keeps us scrolling our fakebook feeds and not getting curious about one another. By getting curious about each other's experiences, we put our assumptions aside; we put our “oh I had surgery once too” aside when hearing someone’s story; we don’t merge, we join our friends. We ask, “How is that for you?” We ask, “How can I support you?” instead of offering unsolicited advice. What I needed from my family wasn’t a suggestion of how I could have handled it differently; I needed follow-up questions about how it is to be a mom with a medically complex child. I needed connection, not shame. This is what Jane Doe needs too.

Now, back to us boy moms. If you see or hear problematic conversations under your roof, you have a choice: “politely ignore it” or enforce your house rules. You don’t have to shame or blame—just remind the boys that in your house, you respect women, and if you hear them not respecting women, they can leave. Simple as that. You can even tell their parents about the rules, so if you end up calling them to pick up their sons, they understand why. Is this extreme? Maybe for some readers, but I feel like we have been through enough as women. It’s time to start changing the conversation to solution-focused rather than “polite.” If I lose more parent friends because of my approach, so be it. I’d rather have fewer friends than pretend things are okay when they’re not.

We boy moms need each other. We need to help one another through these tough conversations by normalizing them and encouraging each other. Have any of you talked to your boys about the Cornell 7 yet? What was that like? Are you talking to other boy moms about your experience during those conversations? This is where I urge all of you who love your girl trips, your “girl time is my wine time,” and all the rituals that go with it, to use some of that together time to talk about THIS. You may have once been a “Jane Doe” and could have used some of your now-girlfriends back then. It is, unfortunately, still common that when a woman experiences sexual assault, she finds herself losing friends. This happens for many reasons, but often it’s because friends don’t know how to be there, so they distance themselves out of awkwardness. “Fair-weather friends” is what I was taught to call them. Don’t be that.

The Women’s March is a big part of my memoir because it was the first time in my life I felt supported in sharing my assault stories. I felt free to tell them, knowing the women around me were there to listen, to support, and to share their #MeToo experiences. When I was assaulted, not one female friend was with me in that courtroom. That’s just a fact—a hard one to revisit while writing my memoir. My hope for the Cornell Jane Doe is that she’s surrounded by girlfriends who don’t shy away from holding space for her as she navigates this trauma. And these girlfriends may have kids, who may be boys. These now-moms of boys can continue to support a better way forward by pulling from their experience and talking openly about consent with their boys.  And more importantly here, they/we talk about how important speaking up is, possibly using the 50 silent guys in the text group who knowingly allowed a woman to be tortured for seven hours without speaking up as an example of how not to react. How it’s more important to do the right thing by preventing rape by speaking up versus keeping your status in the frat house, therefore staying quiet.

For those of you out there who have experienced sexual assault and are triggered by this news story, please know that I am here. Reach out—there are local and national groups you can contact. Here are a few: https://www.ourresilience.org/, https://www.familyserviceleague.org/virtual-support-groups, https://endrapeoncampus.org/survivor-resources/

And friends of assault survivors, please know that their trauma stories may be “up.” Please be aware of how “polite society” may be negatively impacting you now, and what you might be telling yourself is the polar opposite of what needs to happen. Your friend doesn’t need space; they need you to show up, ask what they need, and be ready to listen if what they need is to tell their story. Being a healthy witness includes listening without problem-solving, listening, and staying curious about how you can support them or how this has been for your friend to have this experience in their past.   Some may argue that their silence is respectful—“well, she’s going through something, so I’ll just leave her be.” That’s not politeness; that’s abandonment. It reinforces the negative messages many survivors experience—that they are now less than—and noticing friends detaching just makes those false voices louder.

In summary, don’t be polite; be loud, be there, even if you are alone, and be on the right side, not the polite side.