As parents with young children will attest, the most frequently uttered word your toddler will use is not ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, or any word you desperately want them to say, but the word ‘no’. At around 2 years, this word will issue from your child’s mouth at an astonishing and infuriating rate. ‘Yes’ isn’t any real competition in the pantheon of formative words for a two-year-old. It would seem that this right to refuse is hard-wired into us, long before we develop a sense of self or begin to retreat into that private, internal landscape that becomes so important as … Continue reading →

Source: Saying No: The Winter of My Non-Consent – LewRockwell LewRockwell.com