Speak Your Mind, Even if Your Voice Shakes

by Katy on July 5, 2025 · 28 comments

Please enjoy this previously published post.

Speak Your Mind Even If Your Voice Shakes
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

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }

Rose July 5, 2025 at 5:06 am

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.

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Julia T July 5, 2025 at 6:48 am

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.

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Rose July 5, 2025 at 11:09 am

I stupidly still believed in the socialization! canard. My son is still very close to his high school friends, and they’re great, but he also played on a travel hockey team with weekends away, etc. Lots of socialization there.

My daughter was just–for example, when she was nine, the other girls were into High School Musical. My daughter watched Monty Python constantly. There was no way she was going to have many friends (or any at all, really).

There were a few good things about high school, which was a really excellent program if you showed up for class and did your homework, which my kids often didn’t. Son because he considered some classes like health, which he failed three times, to be “pointless,” while my daughter had a 504 plan specifically allowing her to miss more classes because of her chronic migraines. Her pediatric neurologist signed off on it. (Oh, by the way, the school decided she’d be absent “too many” times, despite the 504 plan, and called Child Protective Services on me. That was delightful.)

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Sugar Cat Farm July 5, 2025 at 1:35 pm
Rose July 5, 2025 at 1:58 pm

Wow, this is super interesting! Thank you so much!

I was diagnosed as autistic a few years ago. That’s probably why I don’t have any problems setting people straight, ha, I mean telling them how I feel. I have not noticed the same symptoms in Daughter. I had so many autistic red flags as a kid, but no one noticed.

I love this link and am planning to spend the evening diving into it. Again, thank you!

Sugar Cat Farm July 5, 2025 at 3:20 pm

@Rose,
No reply button on your response so I’m replying to myself
I have an autistic friend and she can be very blunt with her thoughts but she’s one of the genuinely sweetest loving people I know. I’ve learned a lot about myself from her comments over the years once I learned how to interpret them.
It’s a shame you had to live life for so long without knowing what made you different.
I think the Otherness aka Otrovert is different than
autistic. At least what I have learned about it so far. It’s
a fairly new concept I think.

Julia T July 5, 2025 at 6:51 am

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.

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MB in MN July 5, 2025 at 8:09 am

Katy, thank you for reposting this. I don’t think I was around the first time it was posted. Good advice as always.

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Fru-gal Lisa July 5, 2025 at 8:44 am

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.)

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Fru-gal Lisa July 5, 2025 at 8:47 am

Eventual, not eventuall.

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JDinNM July 5, 2025 at 8:51 am

Eventually, it’s all eventual. Just wait for the “[wh]y”. ;-}

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Rose July 5, 2025 at 11:13 am

Oh, mine was my fifth grade teacher, who was kind of bananas and had a grudge against me after I corrected him in class. I finally asked Mom to have a conference with him, and when he found out about it, he said to me, “Now what is YOUR problem?” I said, “You.” I hope you died unhappy, Mr. Bernardo!

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Fru-gal Lisa July 5, 2025 at 6:57 pm

Rose, Love your comeback! Wish I’d been gutsy enough to tell ol’Corkscrew off like that!

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JDinNM July 5, 2025 at 8:48 am

If you don’t speak for yourself, someone else will claim to speak for you.

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A. Marie July 5, 2025 at 9:23 am

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.)

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t July 5, 2025 at 10:04 am

. Anyone who has raised an exceptional child knows all the effort and care it requires.. Teachers don’t have the time or training to deal with that. And the attacks by government on education will only make the situation worse.
Speaking up for what you believe in small minded communities? It’s all about $. .>^..^<

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Melissa N July 5, 2025 at 10:18 am

I have a lot of regrets with our daughter’s education as well. (Sorry, this is lengthy.)

Uncle – retired high school principal, Aunt – retired gym teacher, Sister #1 – 35 years teaching Elementary, Sister #2 – taught 1st grade at Christian school for 3 years, me – worked as a secretary at a college 16 years. I’m old school – brick and mortar school. We moved to the school district we live in now when she was in 2nd grade. It happened to be at the same time as the state’s standardized testing was taking place, so for a week, I drove her to her old school in the morning and my husband picked her up after school. We didn’t think we should make her take the tests in a new school. About 50 miles round trip for each of us for a week, but so worth it.

Anyway, the older she got, the more health issues she began having. We kept taking her to the dr and asking questions as she had chronic pain, but they just kept throwing pills and physical therapy at her saying she was “too young” to be in that kind of pain. She was bullied by her teachers more than her peers. She BEGGED from middle school on to go to cyberschool, but we wouldn’t let her. By the end of 10th grade, we pulled her out and put her in cyberschool. Regret not having done it sooner. She would be a professional student if she could get paid for it. Completed both 11th & 12th grade in less than a year, plowed through cyberschool classes, some in less than 2 weeks. Cyberschool couldn’t keep up with her and said they wished they had more students like her. She also got to take some classed she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take locally, such as stem cell research and criminal forensics. She graduated a year early. Before she moved to Virginia couple years later, she was finally diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder (she’s hypermobile). Can just roll over in bed and dislocate a joint.

Since she moved to Virginia, she has been diagnosed with:

Chiari Malformation – cerebellum grew larger than skull could accommodate. Had decompression surgery where a piece of her skull was removed. Since the surgery, she has had numerous seizures.

PTSD – Unfortunately, at one point, we had to live with my MIL for 7 years. Emotionally, psychologically abusive woman (and physically abusive when my husband was young).

POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) – affects her heart

Allergies – adhesive, alcohol (both topical and ingestible), the sun (newest diagnosis) among other things.

Her body metastizies medications at an alarming rate. She has woken up during every surgery she has ever had.

There are several other conditions, but I can’t keep track of them all!

In August, she is going to be tested for MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome).

She has a medical marajuna card and even that barely touches her pain levels. She’s 29 and it’s awful to have such a poor quality of life at that age.

Poor kid got the worst of both my husband’s and my genes.

Despite her health, we are very proud of her. Graduated last summer Magna Cum Laude from the community college in her area with an Associate Degree in General Studies. Just finished her year at a 4-year college in Virginia. All of her courses to.date have been online, and she has special needs accommodations. Also, she is extremely careful with her medications as she knows about how one can become addicted, particularly to pain meds. She stays in constant contact with her doctors and reports any issues immediately. She is very proactive in her health care. She is wise beyond her years when it comes to that, fo which my husband and I are grateful.

Any opportunity I get to see any of her former teachers or doctors locally, I make it a point to tell them about her health problems and how the local health care community and the schools failed her. She wasn’t making things up – her health issues are legitimate

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Rose July 5, 2025 at 11:25 am

Awwww….poor thing. I and my sibs all have Chiari malformation but none of us have ever done anything about it. And yeah, especially for girls, medical people don’t believe them. I remember my doctor a long time ago lecturing me about getting more exercise, saying no matter how tired he was at the end of the day, he got on the treadmill. I said, “Yeah, but you’re NOT SICK.” Back then, “yuppie flu” was a joke.

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Melissa N July 5, 2025 at 6:33 pm

Rose,

My husband is (and most of his family are) migraine sufferers. That was what we attributed her horrific headaches to. The sad thing is that our local hospital is not only the regional trauma hospital, but it’s also a TEACHING hospital. I think the only thing they teach is how to get as much money out of a patient as possible. And, they’re supposedly a “not-for-profit” hospital.

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texasilver July 5, 2025 at 11:12 am

I have mixed feelings about the posts concerning teachers. I have taught in universities & community colleges for 35 years. (Sometimes HS students come to my school for STEM camp, so I teach them too.) I would not like to deal with parents, so I prefer adult age students. I know there are cranky teachers at public school was well as in higher education. However, teachers are in short supply, not well paid, and work many hours grading & planning that we are not paid for. We are often limited by funding at our institution. I have had students that I had to counsel & write up. They likely did not like me. Sometimes I was told I was biased against them or was looking to fail them. This was not the case. Sometimes I was reported to the higher ups in admin. I have worked at the same school for 23 years so I must be doing something right. We teachers are not perfect. We are usually motivated by our love of teaching & mentoring.

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Heidi Louise July 5, 2025 at 11:21 am

Thank you for your work, texasilver!

I have had both positive and negative experiences for myself and for my son. One thing I firmly believe is that if class sizes were small, like 12-15 students, teachers could do much more!

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Rose July 5, 2025 at 11:31 am

The median teacher salary on Long Island were I live is $120,000 or so, so I side eye anything about poor, poor teachers–oh right, I mean “professional educators”–being underpaid.

My daughter’s fifth grade teacher told me in parent conference that Daughter was often missing homework, so she kept her in from recess to finish. I said, “I know. She deliberately misses homework so she can miss recess because no one plays with her.” Her mouth dropped open. Oh FFS, really? Are you that clueless, lady?

I have to say the biggest regret in my life was not homeschooling them and forcing them to endure the gantlet of public school.

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texasilver July 5, 2025 at 12:53 pm

My DIL is a new teacher. She started 3 years ago at an elementary school. Her starting pay was 53K. Teacher pay is Texas is much less than New York it appears.

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Rose July 5, 2025 at 1:17 pm

I don’t consider $53K underpaid, to be honest.

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Ruby July 5, 2025 at 11:34 am

Maggie Kuhn is one of my heroes. I read about her in the 1970s when the pitifully inadequate school I was in got a subscription to Time magazine. It was great to read about such a smart, strong-minded woman who had such a zest for living.

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Amy Liz July 5, 2025 at 4:21 pm

I think I know that teacher (JK). My neurodivergent daughter had a horrible experience with her. And, yes, everyone talked about how she was such a great teacher. She wasn’t.

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Lindsey July 5, 2025 at 5:53 pm

It makes me heart sick to read how many of you were trained not to speak up and have regrets. One of the advantages, to say it in a peculiar way, of my parents having been in WWII camps and coming here as refugees, was that they taught me to stand up, shout even, if I witnessed meanness or unfairness or had it directed at me. It was also tied in with education, as my father believed the more degrees you had, the more people in power would listen to you. For an Eastern European refugee in the 50s to train his daughters that they should delay marriage and finish not only college but some professional training, was extremely progressive. (He wanted me to marry and have children, but not until I was in my 30s) As a result, I can remember only a very few times that I did not stand up for myself or others. Probably because he was an older teen, he did not end up as broken as some of our elderly neighbors who had been in the camps were; he was left with a lifelong mission of not seeing it happen again. I actually have the opposite problem, of not shutting up when I should or misinterpreting situations or comments. Age has moderated me and, looking back, I see times a more diplomatic response might have ended up with better results. I am still happy I went through life extremely assertive, even though thinking “what is the worst that could happen, they will not kill me” is not always an accurate indicator of when to step in.

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Katy July 6, 2025 at 8:21 am

I’m so impressed with your father!

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