I walk around thinking about these things all the time, as I’m working on a “personal nonfiction project,” as I find myself telling people to avoid the m-word. This quote from your piece, among others, struck me.

“It’s polite, respectful and prudent to take other people’s opinions and feelings into consideration. That’s part of the definition of sanity and social maturity. It’s quite another thing to take full responsibility for people’s interpretations and to be ruled by these anxieties, and what’s more, to stifle personal expression on their account—especially when what’s stifled might be the very cause of the underlying friction to begin with.”

Exactly!

I’ve been especially wrestling with the need of one’s own–my own–children for privacy, and the way many people are ready to defend the privacy of other people’s children with the very sharpest of their verbal instruments.

Best to you.