In your place

I recently happened to witness this scene. Father and daughter on the bus: "Dad, in my opinion you should be less strict with your son." The father slowly turns and, glaring at her, says: «You stay in your place! Play the daughter while I play the father."
This quick exchange gave rise to a somewhat bizarre reflection in me. Telling a person to stay in their place has always had a very negative connotation: often, in many cultures, men do it with women, and "that place" is a place to stay submissive, silent, silent and resigned.

For many men, being on top is an ancestrally more reassuring position, and they are convinced that that is their rightful place. But I believe that "our place" has nothing to do with gender logic or with the models that society would like to impose on us.
On the contrary, I am convinced that knowing how to stay in one's place means being truly free. That place is the place where a woman can feel good by "only" being a mother, while the world would seem to tell her that it is a bit reductive and retrograde to do "only" that.

I still have the mark of the rolling pin that my grandmother gave me when I said to her: "Are you just being a grandmother?" That place is where a man has only 45 followers and gets by on a pittance salary, his life only impacts the people he meets face to face, but he is happy just trying to be a good person. On a day of doubt I asked my grandfather: "What is my place in the world?" And he replied to me: "Dear boy, everyone's place is where you don't have to defend yourself from anyone, and it's the logo where you exist even if no one sees you." Here you are! In this sense I wish all of us to find our place!


Andrea Gotico
NP December 2023