Mom’s Message to World About Acceptance Is What We All Need to Hear

Devon Berryann’s 6-year-old son likes wearing nail polish and tutus. She doesn’t know whether it’s just a phase or not, but she doesn’t care because she accepts him the way he is. The problem, however, is that other people don’t.

On Facebook, Berryann wrote a viral post about her son Silas’ experience. She explained that he’d been bullied at school for wearing nail polish and “for the first time ever” worried about his safety and considered telling him to take the nail polish off.

She writes:

“My six year old son likes to wear nail polish. He likes to wear girls’ clothes and tutus. He tells me about the boys he likes at school. He says he will marry them and adopt babies. Maybe he will outgrow it. Maybe not. I love and accept him for who he is. I always thought that doing that would protect him from the pain of hurtful words and bullies, and I didn’t worry.

“A couple days ago he came home and told me again about kids teasing him at school for his nail polish, and for the first time ever I considered talking him into taking it off. Into hiding that part of himself. Because for the first time ever I was scared that he would be gunned down one night when he was out having a good time with his friends.”

Berryann continues to say how she wrestled with the decision to either tell him to hide himself or encourage him to be unique, but ultimately decided that a child should have every right to be who he is. She then called for change.

“I want this world to change. To be better for him. To DESERVE him. Because he is a wonderful, amazing person,” she wrote. “As scared as I am, I know that this world is not going to change with more fear. It has plenty of that. What it needs is more love and acceptance. So yesterday, we went out and bought more nail polish, and today we wore tutus. So here he is world. See my boy for the amazing person he is. Show him love. Show him acceptance. Help us change the world into one that deserves him.”

The post has been shared nearly 14,000 times and received dozens of supportive comments.

Hopefully, Berryann’s words and other similar viral posts about acceptance won’t fall on deaf ears, and we can one day live in a world where people can be safe to express who they are.