Around a week before being 10, my son said to me: "mum I cannot wait, I ll be a teenager now, right?" and I was like "oh push the break there kiddo, you re not a teenager for another three years, take it easy" I laughed at his confusion, but I cringed a little at the thought too. After all, motherhood is an early retirement position, the children DO grow up...
And now he is. A teenager. For better or for worst, we re good. We seem to have evolved from a mother son relationship to friends, which is the coolest thing it can happen to a parent. We have proper discussion on different matters, from climate change to presidential campaigns, from SE topics in school (btw thats sexual education) to his dilemma over how to show a girl he likes her. Oh, yeah. I actually hope that he won't need my help with this, sooner rather than later.
I was faced with a situation today when I had to stand for myself. I did and I was labeled as "aggressive". I found that offensive but but that time I have already concluded there was no point to give that person more consideration.I wasn't being aggressive, I only choose to be clear, instead of using some ambiguous diplomacy. Things would get done if we dropped some of the verbal bureaucracy and stopped finding excuses for not doing our job to begin with. Because of my work, I am exposed to characters from all walks of life. Is one of the small rewards, if any, that I get. I meet people in privileged positions, who either don't care looking down, or when they do, I doubt they understand anything. Is these very people that can change a lot of lives but more often than not, they change them for the worst. And the pretended "familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned.”
I was discussing the "incident" with my mum , thinking that maybe I could have handled it in a more subtle way, the way its expected from a grown up. I went "raw" instead, pretty much the way children go, sincere in their thoughts and their reactions. But than Brandon , overhearing our talk, took side with me: " you were right, mum, not saying this because you re my mum". And he went on: "mature people are so stupid sometimes, they re worst than children"
These may be the comments of a 13 year old, but there was such passion in him, I couldn't help a smug smile. Ever since he was very young, I had to show him trust. Like me, trust and truth seem to be two very important concepts for him. He gets quite annoyed when somebody else lies.
If it involves him directly or not, it doesn't make much difference, he would still get upset
over the fact and state his opinion.
We sure get trained to conform. To rules.
Forgetting that rules are man made and they are sometimes flawed.
From time to time we have to take a stand and break the stupid rules, make things right. We re in fact eager to follow rules, its easier than breaking the status quo. Not only that, but we stop knowing too .... How wonderful for Brandon, he knows everything, be believes it and never follows as many instructions as I do. He s not afraid of getting it wrong, and he usually doesn't. He did not need the instruction manual with his new TV. I know its a TV but I would go and first read the booklet . How come he did not need to and got the set up,up to a tee ?! And how refreshing is it when even in moral issues, he seems to see right through! We grow up developing so many filters that prevent us from seeing things we don't expect to see or indeed don't want to. And building walls instead of bridges, in the form of rules and regulations that seem to offer us protection, when what they re really doing in the long term is secluding us from each other.
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