Sunday bloody selfie

I don't get to really sleep in ever but today at least I got to lay in bed and chat with @smallsteps for half an hour before getting up to start the chores. She is a funny one and is growing up so fast it is incredible.

I think every parent likely feels this in some way but, I feel like I have missed her baby years because there have just been so many things to take care of to make sure we survive, in some cases, quite literally concerning health. The image of a lazy Sunday breakfast together as seen on TV has never become a reality.

Yet, who am I to complain, these are the cards as we play them the best we can.

As far as she is concerned though it is my duty to put her well-being ahead of my own as it was my choice to bring her into the world, not hers. None of us have the choice to enter and, none of us have a choice of when, where or to who we are born tired to. It is funny how many people get attached to things they had no control over like race, country or upbringing.

My goal is that my daughter grows to be unattached as possible to these kinds of things and instead be aware of influences but focus more on the things she can control. While people spend their time worrying and arguing over what the news tells them to worry as argue over, she can spend her time doing what she can in areas she chooses to spend her time on.

I don't think most people really admit how controlled their behaviours are by others, we all feel we are intelligent enough to see the scam. This is why conartists are so successful because they know we think we wouldn't can for their con. People watch the news and think they are smart enough to know the truth and then go out into the world spouting their truth, arguing, polarising. Like good puppets.

I don't want a life of false understanding and manipulated behaviour for my daughter, but that eventual choice will be up to her. All I can really do is help her develop a better toolkit to deal with the world, an internal locus of control and a sensitive awareness of the external environment.

The other day when I was having my treatment at the hospital, the nurse asked me how @smallsteps is going and I told her what she gets up to and how she is progressing. At the end the nurse said that I make her feel like a bad mother. That is silly as, I didn't make her feel anything. Her feelings arose because of the comparisons of her actions to that of another and how she recognizes that she is lacking in her behaviour. This might not actually true at all, but that is how she feels.

Does it matter though? I wonder if the average child sits in front of screens, has organized entertainment and very little self-directed creative pursuits, it will just be the new average set of personality and behaviour, much like the average body size and weight now would have been considered overweight and unhealthy a couple decades ago. The new average doesn't mean a better position, just a plot on a normal distribution curve.

Perhaps my daughter will be seen as an outlier in some categories but, whether that is a positive or negative is yet unknown. In many ways, doing what the average is doing is a smart move because then the probability of being in the middle is higher and, there is safety in numbers. People like security, especially when it comes to the future of their children so raising them to fit in is many parent's goal.

While we are not raising our daughter with the intention she will stand out, I am hoping that she will at least have the chance to discover herself without being told what she is neat to think, do and be.

We all claim individuality yet, we act like others, we think like others and we even apply arbitrary labels to ourselves to fit into a defined group of others. And, we can think we choose this ourselves - Puppets.

The world is changing, average is not going to cut it for most to have a chance at freedom unless, there are some exceptional people out there able to do what others have not and cannot. The children are our future but the future looks bleak of we raise them to be like us.

Oh, I think after 2500+ posts, this is my first selfie. I am becoming the average.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
_{(posted from phone)}