Bienvenidos!

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Parents

Parents have a lot to answer for. I worry a lot about how I am setting my two kids up for the future. I want them to be resilient, and curious, and kind, and aware, and I want them to know that they are loved and cherished (even though they annoy the heck out of me fairly frequently), and I don't want them ever to think that their voice, their opinion, their feelings don't matter.

I mull this over a lot. I have a great relationship with my mum - now - but this has only really blossomed since I became an adult. For much of my childhood she didn't like me very much, and I don't remember a lot of affection when I was little. I don't remember her playing with me much. I remember being dismissed a lot:
'Children don't get backache.'
'Children don't get headaches.'
'I'm cold' 'Go and find a jumper then'
(On realising my own mortality and being terrified) 'Mummy I don't want to die' 'Don't be ridiculous'
There was a time in primary school, year 5, maybe, when we were making mothers day cards and the teacher asked us to think of something our mothers did that showed that they loved us.. I really struggled with that. I wrote down 'because you make me practice my violin even when I don't want to'. The teacher said change it to 'encourage'.
Another card started with the lines
'This is a poem to my mum.
Although you shout and smack my bum...'

I used to ask what she wanted me to be when I grew up. She would say, I don't mind, as long as you're happy, which wasn't really helpful. But then when I used to say I loved performing and wanted to be on stage I got told that wouldn't make me happy because it wasn't a secure career and I should do something clever with my clever brain.
And the time when, after months of trying to pluck up the courage, I went in to tell her that I had crushes on girls as well as boys, I got 'OK, that's fine.' (Eyes on the TV) Away goes a very confused and deflated Blujeans after a very anticlimactic moment.

So I wonder how much all of this has shaped my chronic imposter syndrome and always feeling like I 'should' be doing something worthy and never feeling good enough and squashing down the things I really want in favour of what I think other people would want from me or suppressing those aspects of me that are not completely conventional. And I wonder if anything would be gained from trying to talk to her about it or whether just to let bygones be bygones and appreciate what we have now without trying to reopen old wounds. It would probably do more harm than good but I wonder if she ever thinks back to then and if there's a reason she was like that.

So I don't want to be the same for my two. I want them to feel heard and acknowledged.

I don't have anything to round this musing off and I'm tired, so, goodnight.

11:10 p.m. - 2020-10-25

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