Last week, I woke up from a nightmare about being a child again. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about how being a legal minor was terrifying and frightening.
I grew up in a loving but misguided home. And I still live here now, during this pandemic, but there’s a sense of safety I have now as an adult that I didn’t have before when I was younger.
I got a flu shot last fall at UMBC and I didn’t tell anyone in my family until 2 weeks later, since it was taboo in our household. It felt freeing and I was so proud of myself for taking charge in my health and my bodily autonomy. I got started on the HPV vaccine (it’s 3 different shots taken over time) after arguing with my mother about it. She had begged me to just get a pap smear instead, insisting that the vaccine would put HPV, a sexually transmitted disease, in my pure body, which was unnecessary when I’m a virgin.
I talked to her about cervical cancer, about the potentiality of unwanted sexual advances, about potentially being infected by a future partner who cheats on me. She didn’t listen. She was so sure she knew better for me and my body and so… emotional because she never had to convince me before. She pleaded with me to reconsider.
But she couldn’t stop me from driving there and getting the vaccine. The most she could do was her best to change my mind, and none of it worked.
Minors have so little rights in the United States. Children have been (and are!) victims of identity fraud, bodily harm, mental and emotional abuse. So many reports to Child Protective Services just send these children back home to their abusive families, who then punish the children in the privacy of their homes.
Given that so many people with disabilities are viewed legally the same as minors, it’s sobering to think about.
One famous example is Britney Spears, whose father became the co-conservator of her estate shortly after her mental breakdown due to bipolar disorder back in 2007. She has no control of when she can see her sons and must report how she spends her money to her conservators, despite having recovered.
And the 2007 breakdown itself was reportedly due to a lack of control over her career and her body, as she later explained about shaving her head during the event, saying “It was, you know, ‘I just don’t want anybody, anybody touching my head. I don’t want anyone touching my hair. I’m sick of people touching my hair.'”
Britney Spears is 38 years old this year. She just filed for her father to be removed from her conservatorship 4 days ago from today and it’s unclear what will happen. I was lucky enough to grow out of my parent’s legal control, but many people with mental and physical disabilities are not and may never be able to.
Unruly Bodies 
This is such an important point. I’m happy you did what you thought was right, even though it was met with such resistance. Thinking about those in the world that are viewed as minors legally is quite a scary thought. Who gets to decide who is in charge and what qualifies as being trapped legally as a minor? Where is the line? At what point does this get decided? What if it is truly an abusive situation? Your post left me with a lot of thoughts, and I appreciate the points you made.
I think this is such a good post for a number of reasons. First the joke of antivaxers is common today but I truthfully had never heard from someone who had experienced it, and the ties it can have to bodily control, or bodily “cleanliness”. Second the idea of a lack of autonomy for a mental illness is terrifying and sad and all too common so tying your points together here I think was so well done and as you said “sobering”. I want to add that having a mental illness like this is not only being controlled, but living in fear of it too. I am also bipolar, and the fear I have of telling people is insurmountable because of the fear of being labeled as needed to be controlled. Sometimes it feels as though I am a wild dog and every doctor I see has a cage on hand just in case I bite. I have control of my own life, my own body, but my reality is that, that statement always comes with a “for now” tacked onto the end. At any point if I am deemed unstable, because of my label, I could become under someone else control other than my own. This hypothetical situation has not yet happened to me, but I am reminded everyday that it could, and that it has to others. And having the reminder that my brain is not fully mine so my body isn’t either is scary and enraging. You are right, childhood is horrifying, as is the situation with Brittney, and the scary thought is that these systems act as a reminder to many of us that we could be next. Your post really resonated thank you!
I feel connected to your experiences with your mother and getting vaccinated. Immediately I thought about the being in the doctors office as a child and just looking to my mom to answer all the questions. Every time the doctor suggested I get an “optional” vaccine, my mother always opted out for me. I never really understood why or had any second thoughts about it because I hated needles anyway. I remember when I first started going to the doctor’s independently and they would tell me about flu shots and the HPV shot and my mind would just go blank and then I’d say “no not today” just because that’s what my mother would have said. It took a few annual visits before I got over my internalized anti-vaxxer and finally said yes to the HPV vaccine. It wasn’t until maybe two years ago that I learned how the flu vaccine is helpful for keeping others safe, not just myself. I also have struggled a lot with just going to the doctor’s in general if something’s wrong, and when I do finally make appointments, I almost never tell my parents. I think that’s something I need to unpack for myself because I can’t tell if it’s about privacy, shame, or something else. Sometimes I catch myself asking my parents for permission to do things and I’m like wait, I’m 22, I can just go do it. They had such a strong hold on almost every aspect of my life as a child that it’s taken deliberate effort from me to try to be my own person without their input. At first, that led to me detaching from them altogether, which made me feel bad so now I’m working on finding a middle ground that I’m comfortable with, especially since I still live with them.
This is an intense subject and one that I have thought little about. Children get so few choices in their lives, some that really do not make sense as to why we are restricting them. My mother when I well into high school would not let me chop my hair off. At max five inches at a time and even then she did not like it. But what would it have mattered if I had cut it sooner? When people have the ability to make decisions, we should let them. Of course they should be informed choices a five year only may only want to ice cream for every meal given the opportunity but surely they could still choose between ice cream or a brownie for dessert? I think that people just do not understand when people are ready 18 is such a strict deadline. Mental illness does not have such a strict rule. Everyone needs to be able to have choices I guess the problem is understanding how many choices are too many
The first sentence of this piece drew me in because of how much I think about this. You bring up such important points about minors in the US, CPS, and Britney Spears. I have three little sisters and constantly have to tell them “When you’re older….” I just don’t think it’s fair they have to wait to make so many of their own decisions. There were a lot of things that happened to me growing up that I just had to deal with because I knew my parents wouldn’t approve (and I had a pretty decent happy life growing up). I’m happy that you were able to get the shots you desired and now have the opportunity to get vaccines that YOU want when YOU want. Thank you for sharing this and helping my mind turn gears on how to help my little sisters (and every other minor in the US).