The Good Girl. The Good Boy. The Cost of Being Good.

I came across something recently that said: “Good girls don’t get angry. They fall sick instead.”

As a therapist and healer, I know human health is complex, but I understand what the sentence really meant.

Suppressed anger and chronic emotional stress can affect us in ways we don't always recognise.

But that's true for both genders.

First, let's talk about who this good girl is.

Most likely, she is the one who is taught to be accommodating. The one who keeps the peace, who understands everyone, forgives and adjusts, no matter how badly she was treated.

The one who doesn't make things difficult. She is the one who thinks about the family before herself, who carries the responsibility of holding everything together, excusing the bad behaviour and temper of the man because he is the father, brother, husband, or son.

A good girl, by the social definition, makes herself easy to live with.

She learns, slowly, that having needs makes things complicated. That saying no creates conflict. That anger makes her difficult. That boundaries may hurt people.

So she becomes quieter, more accommodating, more forgiving.

Until eventually, she learns to have no voice, no needs, and definitely no boundaries at all.

And then there is the good boy.

The socially good boy is often taught something slightly different.

He is the one who believes it is his responsibility to keep everyone together. The one who feels that if his wife and parents cannot get along, somehow he has failed. The one who believes he has to mediate every conflict, absorb everyone's emotions, keep everyone happy, protect family honour, and make sure nobody is disappointed in him.

This is the boy who has learned that being a good husband means keeping his wife happy, being a good son means keeping his parents happy, and being a good man means somehow managing both. Even when the conflict belongs to two other adults.

The boy who feels that sacrificing his own mental and emotional well-being is necessary and a responsibility. So he learns to endure, suppress and keep going without complaint.

The good boy is responsible. He is the one everyone can rely on. And somewhere along the way, endurance becomes strength.

As your therapist, I'd say: Don't be that good girl. And don't be that good boy either.

Why?

Not because relationships aren't important. They are. Relationships matter.

But your disappearance can't be the price of maintaining one.

Because being that “good” will cost you in ways that are difficult to repair.

And the impact doesn't always end with you.

Sometimes, the price of the “good” label is inherited by your children too. Because children don't only inherit our words. They inherit what we normalise.

They watch what we tolerate, who gets to speak and who stays silent to keep the peace. They notice who keeps apologising and who always adjusts. They watch, and then they learn what love, marriage, family, responsibility and goodness are supposed to look like.

It carries forward!

Now, before you go any further, answer this.

Did you learn to swallow your anger?

Did you learn to apologise even when you weren't wrong?

Did you learn to explain yourself endlessly?

Did you learn to tolerate disrespect because “that's just how he is”?

Did you learn to adjust because the family needs it?

Did you learn to stay silent because keeping the peace was more important than choosing what was right?

Did you learn that keeping everyone happy was your responsibility?

Did you learn that leaving made you selfish?

Did you learn that a woman's strength should always be wrapped in softness so nobody feels threatened by it?

Did you learn that a man's strength is in how much he can endure without complaining?

And did you learn to blame it all on your Shani?

If you answered yes, you probably know the cost that came with those yeses.

The cost, my dear, was YOU.

You probably had to abandon some part of yourself to keep those answers a yes.

And yet, if you still feel being “good” is mandatory, let's change the definition of “good” a little.

Be good… If being good means being the one who understands, yet knows their boundaries.

Be the good one who understands that kindness does not require compliance.

Be the good one who doesn't enable someone else's bad behaviour simply because confronting it feels uncomfortable.

Be the good boy who isn't afraid of disappointing people who benefited from his constant accommodation.

Be the good boy who doesn't confuse endurance with strength.

Be the good girl who doesn't confuse forgiveness with permission.

Be the good girl who can say no without writing an essay explaining why.

And be the good person who doesn't shy away from standing up to a fragile ego when that ego is being fed by intimidation, threats, control or abuse.

Be the good person who understands that someone's discomfort with your boundary is not evidence that your boundary is wrong.

Be good enough to face yourself in the mirror, even if that makes you “bad” for the world.

And understand this too: Whether you are a man or a woman, keeping a relationship together is a joint responsibility. It is not a burden that one person is expected to carry alone.

An abusive woman is not okay because she is a woman.

Likewise, an abusive man is not okay because he is a man.

A human being, irrespective of gender, should not have to tolerate humiliation, manipulation, threats or violence because a relationship or a role expects them to be the one who adjusts, stays strong, or takes responsibility for everyone else.

Parental abuse is not okay.

Marital abuse is not okay.

Abuse between siblings is not okay.

Why?

Because abuse is abuse.

And no role, gender or situation makes abuse acceptable.

The person being harmed does not become responsible for maintaining the relationship simply because they are the more patient, forgiving, or emotionally capable one.

And being a good human isn't a gender-based role.

Neither are boundaries.

Boundaries aren't masculine or feminine.

The idea of being “masculine” and “feminine” has been commercialised, to say the least.

Being decisive, confrontational, or protective of yourself isn't inherently masculine.

They're simply ways of being human.

Sometimes, signs that you're becoming stronger.

So...

The part of you that says enough isn't masculine.

The part of you that adjusts or accommodates isn't feminine.

It is simply the part of you that knows you are worth protecting.

And perhaps that's what a lot of women and men discover when they finally stop being the “good girl” or the “good boy.”

Refusing to be “good” by society's definition doesn't mean that you lose, become cruel when you stop being compliant, or become aggressive when you become assertive.

You don't become selfish when you stop over-functioning for everyone else.

You don't hate men, women, or relationships simply because you refuse to excuse harmful behaviour.

You don't have to destroy a relationship to stop allowing someone to destroy you.

And you certainly don't have to protect someone else's ego at the expense of your own dignity.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question I want to leave you with today is: Who taught you that being difficult was worse than being unhappy?

I don't want us to glorify aggression and call it strength. I want something much simpler.

I want us to stop confusing goodness with self-abandonment.

I don't want women and men to stop being good, as long as the definition of being good involves kindness, compassion and forgiveness without self-abandonment.

In your goodness, don't forget where you end, and someone else's behaviour begins. You can understand someone's wounds and still refuse to become the place where they discharge them.

You can care about someone's pain without volunteering to be hurt by it. And you can protect yourself without becoming cruel. And if required, you can love someone and still leave.

Because sometimes the healthiest thing a “good girl” and a “good boy” can learn is that keeping the peace is not the same as having peace.

And if the only way to keep a relationship peaceful is for one person to remain silent, accommodating, and afraid, that's not peace. It's compliance.

Be the good that chooses value over compliance.

Until the next,
Shuchi