My 3 year-old son's face is exulting with pride as he's showing me an A4 white sheet on which the whole alphabet is scribbled in messy Crayola. But out of the corner of my eye I see his twin brother looking down and drawing frenzied circles holding his pen as if it were a baseball bat. He looks sad and hurt. This is the kind of things that surface the rivalry between my boys and my flawed, deficient self. I forget to tell him that it's beautiful. That I am proud of him. And that I understand. Instead, I compare. Take notes. Wonder why my child is not measuring up. And tell him to hold his pen properly.

Some days I float around with a contented beam on my face. And sometimes I wish I could hammer my inadequacy and wrap myself up in a blanket that would give me full immunity. I don't aim perfection. But I do seek normality. Walking by 15 months, getting out of diapers in less than 3 weeks, one day I found my then 2 year-old son crouched under my desk shuddering while Laa-laa and Po were waltzing and laughing hysterically and I remember thinking "every kid loves the Teletubbies, why doesn't my kid like it?" Thousands of books are crowding and jostling our shelves flooding us with valuable recommendations but also shaving off the edges of every parent and child's individuality. Yet I think the one thing that smooths out all the bumps every mother grapples with is to know that our children are within the normal range. We want predictability. We want validation. And we want to fit.

Today I forgot to tell my son that it's ok to be different and that the rules we are imbued with and that incline us to conformity should never, ever shatter his creativity or prevent him from growing in simple innocence. But mostly, I forgot to love him. Unconditionally.


contributed by one of my favorite writers, Irene Nam via Creative Reporter. Irene is also known in the blogging world as the MOMster, a writer living in Paris surviving twinshock, blank page days and dog poop.