Don't Call Me Daughter

alone... listless...
breakfast table in an otherwise empty room
young girl... violence... center of her own attention
mother reads aloud, child tries to understand it
tries to make her proud

the shades go down, it's in her head
painted room... can't deny there's something wrong...

don't call me daughter, not fit to
the picture kept will remind me
don't call me daughter, not fit to
the picture kept will remind me
don't call me...

she holds the hand that holds her down
she will... rise above...

don't call me daughter, not fit to
the picture kept will remind me
don't call me...

the shades go down
the shades go, go, go...



These are the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s Daughter, originally released in 1993.

If it’s playing, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I stop and join the battle cry.

It’s been an anthem since the very first time I heard it. Don’t you call me daughter.

It’s not about my mother. Or about my father.

It’s the retaliatory word-strike against the blows that life has dealt and the oppressions that I’ve known, whatever their source. These are the words I’ve never mustered on my own.

Don’t you do it.

At church this morning, I was reminded of the woman who was sick for twelve years and was finally healed by touching Jesus’s robe. Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Mark 5:34 (NIV)

I know this story.  I’ve read / heard it countless times.  But when my pastor said, "Do you know this is the only time that Jesus ever called someone "daughter"?" ...

I stopped.