Speak Your Mind, Even if Your Voice Shakes
by Katy on July 5, 2025 · 9 comments
Please enjoy this previously published post.
Although I’m far from “shy,” I still have to gather my courage before speaking up for myself. Why? I think it’s simply human nature to want to smooth things over and not make waves.
I look back on times and events that I regret in my life, and I mostly identify when I did not speak up for myself or my children. The fourth grade teacher who was consistently negative and oddly punitive towards my son. I once asked her if she had anything positive to say about him, and she simply stared me down without saying a word. All the other parents said she was “a great teacher, if you have a girl.” (Just writing about it makes me white hot with rage!) And by the way, her main complaint about my son was that he wiggled in his seat and looked out the window.
But I’m older and wiser now, and realize that addressing the issues with the teacher was a battle I should have chosen. But at the time, I feared she would be even worse to my son if I confronted her with my concerns. I deeply regret this.
Luckily, my current life is pretty smooth, although there still seem to be times when I have to take a deep breath, gather my courage and speak my mind.
I went in for my annual work evaluation yesterday. The paperwork goes into my human resources file, and is as close to that dreaded permanent record as is likely at this phase of my life. Although I’ve been in the same hospital-based RN job for 19 years, these meetings always give me a case of the jitters. I sat down and noticed that I was being being marked as having “met” rather than “exceeded” at my job. And although “met” is considered perfectly acceptable, I felt the need to speak up.
I explained to my boss, (who is kept busy with meetings, and never sees me in action) that I felt that I earned the “exceeded” label. That I hold myself to a very high standard, that I work to support a positive work environment and that I try to be the nurse I wish I was working with. She listened to what I said, and then changed my rating.
It made me nervous to speak up for myself, but I did it anyway.
And this morning, I sat down to read through my e-mails, and sent out three very carefully worded e-mails that I would have much preferred to procrastinate or simply delete. Emails that required me to bypass my natural inclination to shy away from sticking up for myself. But because they were in written form, none will be the wiser that my voice was shaking; but yes, it was.
I often think of the popular bumper sticker quoting grey panther Maggie Kuhn, encouraging people to “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” (I know that anything translated to a bumper sticker format immediately becomes trite, but I find inspiration in it anyway.)
How does this relate to non-consumerism?
By choosing a less traditional life, there are inevitable uncomfortable conversations. Whether it’s telling a family member that you want to tone down Christmas or simply declining expensive invitations. Or even just living a simple life that sometimes does require you to explain your decisions, even when it’s no one’s business but your own.
So please non-consumers, speak your mind. Even if your voice shakes.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
ARGH, I hate the anti-boy teachers. My son had a couple of them and boy did I yell at them. I had to speak up for my kids often in school–like the time my son got suspended in middle school for throwing an acorn at a girl. The girl kept hitting him with acorns, the security guard did nothing, so my son lobbed an acorn at her. Gee, whose side did they take? The sobbing girl or the defiant six foot tall middle schooler with a blue mohawk? And then the security guard told my son, “Just tell the girl you like her!” Man, I hated the middle school principals.
Later, when Son got perfect SAT scores, I felt like writing a note to the anti-boy third grade teacher, “And YOU said he wasn’t gifted.”
Then when I decided my daughter needed to skip at least one grade and go to high school, I faced down the middle school principal, the high school principal, the superintendent of schools, and the high school psychologist. Of course I argued them down and won. My daughter who was 13 just sat at the table and read Anna Karenina.
But in general, teachers etc were far more accommodating and kind to my daughter rather than my son. They put my daughter in the gifted program, for example.
In conclusion, I should have homeschooled.
Yes, such great examples. We had similar experiences with our neurodivergent child. It brings me to tears all the times “professionals” misjudged and were punitive to them. We ended up pulling them out of school and homeschooling. Which was the best decision ever for us.
I love that quote. And very applicable in today’s political climate as well. I’ve stepped WAY outside my comfort zone to speak up for what I believe is right. And in the process I’ve met so so many new like minded friends and allies! I’ve experienced so many things I never dreamed I could be part of. And I know that I wasn’t complicit in my silence. Also, speaking up looks different for everyone.
Katy, thank you for reposting this. I don’t think I was around the first time it was posted. Good advice as always.
What is it about 4th grade teachers that makes them so MEAN?
Your story reminds me of a time that my 4th grade teacher, let’s call her Old Lady Corkscrew, told my mother that I’d “never amount to anything” bc my handwriting was not up to her standards. She wouldn’t even let my dad sign my homework papers I brought home bc HIS handwriting was subpar; my mother, with her neat handwriting, had to sign everything.
Pitiful little girl that I was, I’d go out of my way to try to please Mrs. Corkscrew, even taking her nice books I’d received from my aunts, so that she could read stories to the class.
Like your son’s teacher, she wouldn’t say anything, she’d just give me such a hateful stare that I’d scamper back to my desk.
Oh, and she didn’t like my posture so she once dumped me out of my desk so that I slid to the floor and the books underneath fell out too.
If she wasn’t bullying me, she’d let the other kids do it; after all, I must be trash since my mother worked full time (as a school employee) instead of staying at home
Mom was just furious at the “never amount to anything” remark and I never told her a lot of the nasty treatment Corkscrew gave me.
It was not until I graduated from college and we were all sitting around drinking champagne that Mom let me know of her eventuall revenge: when I was a high school senior, I was picked to receive a scholarship for being a model citizen and good student and for my numerous student leadership roles. This was a full 8 years after I’d had to deal with Old Lady Corkscrew. But Mom phoned her from school and invited her to the senior recognition assembly so she could watch the kid who’d “never amount to anything” get top honors at the high school! National Honor Society, the whole works.
Meanwhile, the boy who bullied me a lot, and who was Corkscrew’s teacher’s pet , was sitting in jail on drug charges. Having dropped out in 10th grade.
PS — These days, I’m often complimented on my cursive handwriting. Turns out I was just a late bloomer and didn’t have good coordination when I was 9 years old. Also, thanks to my mother’s job, our family’s frugal ways, and my scholarship, we were able to cash flow my way to the state university while all the SAHM’s kids had to take out loans. (That some of them are STILL trying to pay back, decades later.)
Eventual, not eventuall.
Eventually, it’s all eventual. Just wait for the “[wh]y”. ;-}
If you don’t speak for yourself, someone else will claim to speak for you.
As I’ve noted in a few comments on earlier posts, speaking your mind is one of those things that gets easier with age, or at least I’ve found it so. I turn 70 next month, and I’m getting further and further into “You’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a #$%@” territory on multiple fronts. (Except for politics, where I very much give a #$%@–but this also goes along with caring less about what other people think.)