“That’s You When You Tell Me No”

by Emily | Ash and Bloom

She was about five—full of sugar, spice, and everything… well, else—when she proudly pressed a piece of paper into my hands.

A burst of color and movement spilled across the page: reds, purples, yellows, all tumbling together in delightful chaos, lines darting in every direction, and aggressive dots that likely murdered a marker or two in the making.

At first, it looked like a storm trying to outrun itself… until I noticed… horns? Are those three eyes?

My curiosity got the better of me, so I bent down and asked the question that always opens a window into a child’s mind:
“What’s this a picture of, sweet girl?”

Her face lit up with an alarming mix of excitement, validation, and pride. Then, in her tiny, innocent voice, she said,
“That’s you… when you tell me no.”

Ah.

So this is how I appear to my daughter in those moments—not the (mostly) calm, steady figure I imagine, but an electric force. Horns. Three eyes. Killer nails. And, I have to admit, perfectly coiffed hair.

I swallowed a chuckle, but there was that small pinch—Really? Is this how you see me when I draw the line?
I didn’t let it sit there. Instead, I leaned in and said,
“Wow, honey. I love how creative you are! Look at all those beautiful colors! And my nails—look how perfectly long they are!”

She skipped off, likely to see if her dad might be more agreeable to whatever she’d been hoping for, while I sat staring at my image… if I lived in a teenager’s nightmare on Elm Street.

At first, I questioned everything.

But later, I noticed something that shifted it all. She hadn’t drawn me small. She hadn’t faded me into the background.

She drew me big. She drew me bright.
She drew me utterly impossible to miss.

In her little world, I am present. I am felt. Apparently… very felt.

And that—that gave me comfort.

Because maybe the “no’s” aren’t just obstacles to her joy, but markers of my presence. Maybe they tell her, without words:
“You matter enough for me to think ahead for you. You are worth protecting. You are worth my energy—even when it costs me my comfort… and my image.”

We don’t always think of “no” as a safe place, but it is. A well-placed no is full of forethought, care, and protection. It’s the steady wall she can lean on when everything else feels wide open and uncertain.

When I choose the hard role—when I’d rather have easy and fun but still hold the line—I’m choosing her over my comfort. And maybe she won’t see it now.
But someday, she will.

Yes, it’s thankless in the moment.
Yes, it’s wearying to be typecast as the “bad cop.”

But here’s the quiet truth: love doesn’t always sound like yes. Sometimes love sounds like no—spoken with care, with steady consistency, and with the kind of resolve that says, I am committed to your safety and your growth (and your teeth not rotting out.)

One day, she will carry this with her.

I’ll bear witness to her grace in disappointment.
I’ll hear my words in her voice.
I’ll see my boundaries in the way she protects her own heart and the hearts of others.

And maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember that wild, colorful drawing—and see it for what it really was. Not a portrait of the villain who told her “no,” but of the mother who showed up— steady, certain, with perfectly coiffed hair and an unwillingness to trade her child’s overall good for her own momentary comfort.

Because love leaves an impression. And in her own five-year-old way, she had already told me…

that I was the safest place she knew—even when I didn’t give her what she wanted.

So the next time you feel that twinge of guilt for denying your sweet-faced child something they want, remember this: there are more lessons in “no” than you think. You will be forgiven—eventually. (You may even be understood!) And if you’re lucky, you might be handed a portrait of yourself in all your not-so-best glory, drawn by a little one who is, as it turns out, full of sugar, spice, and everything… else.