I Didn’t Mean to Fu*k Them Up.

Lauren Derrett - 25 Oct 17

So I HATE Lego!! I however don’t mind Playmobil.

What this means is that I don’t mind playing with my son and Playmobil but never play with Lego.

And what I’ve learnt in my 21 years of motherhood is that whatever we play with them they will still have their own preferences and they won’t always match mine (my oldest son voted the opposition in the last election, can you  imagine)

However we mother our children; it may not be how they as individuals need to be mothered. For all I know, the 5 year old that I enforced Playmobil on may bloody hate the stuff in favour of the dreaded Lego, he just doesn’t know it yet, because it’s not something I offer up when playing with him.

Here’s the thing, I now have 2 grown up boys (alongside a teenage girl and a 5 year old boy) and they are chalk and cheese.

The eldest is sensitive, deep, emotional and quieter; the second is loud, easy going and gift of the gab.

But when they were little I parented them the same, I parented them using experiences from  my childhood (read – the opposite of my experiences of childhood) and how I viewed the world.

I done what I thought was best for them.

I played Playmobil with both of them.

As adults now, with their own personalities, their own wants and needs from life, their own opinions and values I can see how my parenting of them in their younger years  wasn’t parenting them as individuals, instead clubbing them together for ease,  not considering for one moment that this would have any kind of negative impact on them or their learning.

You see, in those younger years I had no clue who the actual people were behind these children, I was just mothering kids? It didn’t occur to me at all that they would have different styles of learning or would be drawn by Lego but only offered Playmobil.

I was mothering blind.

The point is this; we don’t ultimately know who our little people will turn out to be, so we can’t parent them in a way that will guarantee them ‘no issues’ as adults.

Think carefully, how many adults do you know that have issues from childhood? Adults from happy loving families? Adults from divorced families?  Adults from wealthy families? Adults from poor families?

It seems there is no set formula to escape it.

It’s the biggest concern when raising kids, what if I fuck them up when they’re adults?

I’ve come to think of it as a rite of passage through our evolution, it’s a time for figuring it all out, it’s a time for figuring ourselves out, and it’s a time to decide if we prefer the playmobil we were offered or the lego that was held back.

As a mother watching this transition in her own children and watching them evolve into the people they ultimately are, throws up all manner of ‘I should have offered up the lego’ and much worse internal dialogue.

It’s been really tough learning to step back and accept responsibility for my part in collective parenting (not helped by one of the school mums saying ‘do you think if you hadn’t got a divorce they’d be ok’?) but, I now accept my part in it AND I accept that it’s not all about the parenting, we aren’t the only influence in our children’s lives. As it turns out they are pretty darn influential themselves.

Because they are multifaceted, beautifully complex human beings.

All we as mothers can ever do is what we feel is our best with the tiny person in front of us that hasn’t come with a step by step guide of how to not fuck them up.

We may get bits wrong, and that is OK there is no parenting trophy to be won.

All we can do is our best.

*off to dig out the Lego

Lauren Derrett

I'm Lauren, Founder of Wear 'em Out, reusable period pads for the empowered eco-curious. Mother of 4, Step-Mother of 2, I've been parenting for 24 years so have seen and learned a lot of stuff

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