I read a heartbreaking blog this morning about a mother finding out that her little son has stopped liking things because the other boys at his school teased him about it. The mother spoke about how she cried for 10 minutes because the world of peer pressure has started for her son, and the unseen machine of societal control has started its march of shaping her boy into a different person.
It stung me, coz I was that little boy. I can still feel the looks from the other kids when I talked about liking learning and school, and reading, and musicals, and an endless list of things I loved but was made to feel inferior for liking them. It happens to everyone, and the pressure does take a toll. Somethings I fought to keep, others I discarded in shame… It happens to everyone.
I just don’t want it to happen to my daughter.
And that is never going to happen.
But I don’t want her to react the way I did. Folding, and not standing up for myself. That is the trick as a parent; making our children stronger than we were.
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