I read this last night. As the words scrolled across my page, I felt my mama hairs stand on end.

“That boy better be nice to her!” I whispered.

Keep reading, friends. This article will restore your confidence in today’s youth!

Dear teenage boy at the skate park:

You’re probably about fifteen years old, so I don’t expect you to be very mature or for you to want a little girl on your skate ramp for that matter. What you don’t know is that my daughter has been wanting to skateboard for months. I actually had to convince her that skateboarding wasn’t just for boys.

So when we walked up to the skate park and saw that it was full of teenage boys who were smoking and swearing, she immediately wanted to turn around and go home. I secretly wanted to go too because I didn’t want to turn on my mom voice and exchange words with you. I also didn’t want my daughter to feel like she had to be scared of anyone, or that she wasn’t entitled to that skate park just as much as you were.

So when she said, “Mom, it’s full of older boys,” I calmly said, “So what – they don’t own the skate park!”

She proceeded to go down the ramp in spite of you and your friends flying past her and grinding rails beside her. She only had two or three runs in before you approached her and said, “hey, excuse me…”

I immediately prepared to deliver my, “She’s allowed to use this park just as much as you guys” speech – when I hear you say, “Your feet are wrong. Can I help you?”

You proceeded to spend almost an hour with my daughter showing her how to balance and steer and she listened to you – a feat not attained by most adults. You held her hand and helped her get up when she fell down and I even heard you tell her to stay away from the rails so that she wouldn’t get hurt. I want you to know that I am proud that you are part of my community and I want to thank you for being kind to my daughter, even though your friends made fun of you for it. She left with a sense of pride and with the confidence that she can do anything because of you.