“You held her hand and helped her get up when she fell down.”
"I wish I could skateboard," said 6-year-old Peyton recently. But she thought it was just for boys. "We had a long talk about how there are no such thing as 'Boy things' and 'Girl things,' there are just things," says her mother Jeanean Thomas.
Thomas gave Peyton her old skateboard and took her to the local skate park in Cambridge, Ontario. When they arrived, they saw a group of teenage boys skating, smoking, and swearing.
"Mom, it’s full of older boys," Peyton said.
Thomas told her that didn't matter, and Peyton began to skate. Soon, one of the older boys came over to Peyton.
Jeanean Thomas
"I immediately prepared to deliver my 'She’s allowed to use this park just as much as you guys' speech," Thomas wrote in a letter to the boy posted on Twitter after the encounter. Instead, the boy told Peyton, "Your feet are wrong. Can I help you?"
The encounter inspired Thomas to write a thank-you letter to the boy.
"You proceeded to spend almost an hour with my daughter showing her how to balance and steer, and she listened to you – a feat not attained by most adults!" she wrote.
Jeanean Thomas
"I want you to know that I am proud that you are part of my community, and I want to thank you for being kind to my daughter, even though your friends made fun of you for it."
Jeanean Thomas
"She left the skate park with a sense of pride and with the confidence that she can do anything, because of you."
"When we were leaving the park I said, 'That was really nice of that boy to help you like he did.' She said 'Yeah,' and then turned around and ran back to him and said 'Thank you!' and smiled," Thomas told BuzzFeed Canada.
She said Peyton now skateboards all the time.
"If it interests you, you can do it," she said. "Your gender doesn't matter, how you treat others is what matters."
Jeanean Thomas
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét