Friday, December 30, 2011

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?

My siblings and I grew up with Mother's identifying descriptors for each of us......one was the pretty one, one was the smart one, and one was the baby.  Breaking the mold of our perceived places in the family order has been an interesting process and one each of us has faced in our own way.

Although it's really taken years,  I think by now, I hope anyway, we've ALL found out we were and are the pretty ones, the smart ones and, of course, understand that we were ALL the baby at one point or another in the family.  

All of this is to say that we grew up with those roles and it took some time for each of us to recognize the we were made up of many attributes/characteristics other than Mother would have imagined.  She always said she believed that we could do anything we wanted - well sort of - but it took us a long time to shake that doubt that was always represented by our "personal" descriptors repeated again and again from childhood to adulthood.

So on this almost Happy New Year 2012, I stop to wonder if Mother was still with us in this life if she could pick from a hat and identify which of us is the author, the painter, the woodworker......all artists?  How did that happen?!  I project that Mother would be very proud of her pretty one, her smart one, and her baby!

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?

No comments:

Post a Comment