My daughter turned 13 this month. This week, she encountered a situation that left her feeling bewildered and upset.
She was in a local shop, purchasing makeup with a friend. They picked up a smaller item and proceeded to wander the store. An older woman, whom my daughter said had been intently watching them in the makeup area, came right up to the girls and asked my daughter if she intended on paying for the item, implying that (in her opinion) the way my daughter was holding it looked like she may try and slip it up her sleeves. Later, the woman apparently alerted store staff to watch the girls as potential shoplifters.
My daughter, who likely had more money in her little wallet than this busy-body, felt persecuted and decided to cut her shopping excursion short, pay and come straight home. She was inconsolable and wept, wondering why she had been singled out.
As parents, we had told her all about discrimination based on religion or the colour of your skin, but nothing about age discrimination. Here, some person with preconceived ideas about teen girls shoplifting decided to discriminate against my daughter and her friend simply because they were young girls buying makeup. She may have read something or heard something or had some experience in the past as a shoplifting youth herself, but nonetheless, this woman belittled and humiliated someone she didn’t even know at all based on incorrect assumptions and a generalization. Worse, she took her misguided opinion and shared it with store staff, slandering my daughter’s good name in a store she frequents. She feels shy to go to that store now.
Well, ma’am, I say shame on you. You would not have approached someone in the store based on colour, race or culture, so why is it okay to do so to a little girl? And by the way, you can kindly leave the parenting to the parents, thank you very much, and mind your own business. You were brave enough to belittle and falsely accuse some young girls, but do you have the courage to apologize?
Steven Hill
Squamish
