Why You Shouldn’t ‘Kill Them with Kindness’

“Kill them with kindness.”

It sounds wise. Polished. Emotionally evolved.

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It’s one of those quotes that feel like wisdom—until you realise it’s aimed at the wrong people.

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Because the ones who truly need this advice? They’re not listening. And the ones who take it to heart? Are often already killing themselves with kindness.

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Kindness is beautiful—but in practice, this advice often means: hide your anger, shrink your truth, make it easier for them to stay comfortable while you swallow what needed to be said.

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It’s self-abandonment dressed up as grace.

It’s bottling rage. Swallowing disrespect. Smiling through what should have been a boundary.

It's code for ‘don’t make a scene.’

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We’re taught that kindness is the high road.

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But when kindness becomes a reflex—especially in moments that require self-respect, clarity, or even conflict—it stops being kindness at all. It becomes avoidance. Conditioning. Fear.

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Not every reaction needs to be soft.

Not every lesson needs to be delivered gently.

Not every truth will land with a bow on top.

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There’s a difference between being kind and being a cushion for other people’s behavior.

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Killing them with kindness is how the good girl stays liked, quiet, and exhausted.

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So no, you don’t need to “kill them with kindness.” You need to stop killing your peace to keep the peace (yes, read that again).

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Kindness should come from love and from choice, not a mask we wear to be palatable.

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Let kindness be real. Let no be enough.

And let your anger, your edges, your silence, your truth—speak when they need to.

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We’re taught early—at school, in fairytales, through the women who came before us—that good means agreeable. Self-sacrificing. Soft-spoken. Easy to love, even at our own expense.

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Many of us come from lines of women who modeled this perfectly. Not because they lacked strength, but because they didn’t know any better or were surviving. Holding it all together.

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These ideas run deep. They shape how we show up in relationships, in motherhood, in work, even in how we talk to ourselves.

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But good, to me, to us, should mean something else.

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It means being rooted in who we are. It means choosing clarity over guilt, presence over performance, and truth over being liked.

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We don’t need more women who fit in quietly.

We need more women who live fully—rebellious in the way they honour their own limits, bold in the way they lead with heart.

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Not bitter. Not hard. Just deeply unwilling to shrink.