When I first started out as a mother, my journals bear out my worries, that having a second or a third, would lead to not paying attention to the individual needs of these new people, that numbers would preclude treating each child's interests and taste and talents and gifts as unique.
Now, that I have ten children, four dietary menus, six different musical instruments being played or not,an artist, a teacher, a government major, a bio major and track star, a K-pop loving archiologist major and a budding singer, editorial cartoonist, and we won't even start on the discussion of clothing, I think this early fear of mine can safely be laid to rest forever. Really.
I mean, I'm not a tiger mom and I'm not an assembly line parent, but I have to wonder, to those tiger moms out there, and those capable of having all their children embrace similar clothing styles, astetics, dietary preferences and haircuts...how did you do it? Mass hypnosis? Biofeedback? Drugs in the dinner plate? Absent draconian threats of Wandavision type becoming unglued, I can't get them to move as a collective voting block to agree upon dinner...not even pizza, because two don't eat pizza and they like three different places from which to get said pie.
Even something as simple as milk...I've got oat milk, almond milk, whole and skim...and one who doesn't like any.
Ice cream...chocolate, mint chocolate chip, only ice cream sandwiches, cashew icecream, mochi (apple pie only), and ben and jerry's cherry garcia, and the rest will eat any of them...that last flavor of B&J is for me though, as a coping mechanism for what I endure when fixing dinner. (But I'm easy, I'll eat just about any sweet).
I'm glad I raised ten individual unique people, but there are moments when I'd like to say, "Hey you...deliberately round peg, get in the square hole now because it's hammer time! And I'd swing down like nobody's business. I'd like to not feel like every meal, every holiday, and every event is not merely reminicent of a GRE Analysis question, but the inspiration for a whole slew of new ones. ETS should have me on payroll.
Still, there are moments when I see the sublime wonder of having so many different unique personalities under one roof. Today, the tire blew out on my mini-van. One made dinner. One practice yoga with three others. One helped organize cleaning the living room. Another did pick up of those who needed rides and two did the dishes. It was a beautiful thing, all these individuals coming together despite their many differences.
In gratittude, I made cookies and everyone was happy. It was then that it hit me, the joy I'd created with the thank you treat...everyone loved them. Everyone ate them. They were universal.
And it occurred to me, the cookies...they were slice and bake.
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