My family

I know we're all stuck with an instinctive loyalty to our maternal parent, but I think am one of the few people who actually has a truly good relationship with my mother, one that is positive in every aspect. When I was younger I had major gripes with my parents, like every other teenager, but through thick & thin my mother was (and is) a role-model to me above any other.

First I need to emphasise that I am not a mommy's girl - far from it. In fact, there's one thing my mother has actually said she is proud of: normally if one attends gathering of whole families (eg. weddings), you can quite easily deduce (from behaviourisms & personality characteristics) which parents belong to which offspring - a chip off the old block. My mom said she's proud of the fact that you could not immediately trace her children back to her. Now while this might sound like an easy method of disown-ment, she basically meant that we were individuals, independent personalities, that developed on our own and didn't feed our characteristics off our parents.

And it's my parents I have to thank for that, for giving me the freedom to take the foundations they set and to use those foundations to diverge into my own person. You know that story about the butterfly that develops strong wings by battling its way out of it's cacoon? My parents enforced just enough discipline & resistance for me to build up my own strengths, to be able to fight back when it counts, and to have the confidence to spread my wings.

When I did leave the nest, I think they might have been afraid they had unleashed a monster... but I think over time they realised they did a pretty good job with me. And not just me. Raising one child is hard enough - three children spanning a 5 year age gap is definitely not a piece of cake. And we fought, we fought alot. It's amazing how different three girls who grew up in the same household can be. Yet somehow they managed to make each of us feel special in our own way. We all followed our own path, and none was made to feel less worthy for it. Furthermore, we were never forced into stereotypically female behaviours, hobbies or careers (on the contrary, none of us are very profficient cooks & can't knit a tea-cosy), but we played our sports and work hard.

Just to give an idea of the versatility in our family - between us three girls we collectively do/did the following sports: soccer, hockey, squash, swimming, ballet, tennis, horse-riding, gymnastics, running, rock-climbing and tae-kwondoe. We have performed in total the following temp jobs: child-caretaker, property-inspector, life-saver, bungy-jumping assistant, modelling, artist and lecturer's assistant. The best is, if you try to match the sport activities with the temp jobs, you'll probably be wrong concerning which of us did which. Now add in our (if modest) skills in piano, singing, painting, ball-room dancing and writing, and our social personalities... Funny to think that the one thing we all have in common is that we're rather introverted personalities and prefer to be loyal to a relatively small group of friends, rather that expend energy on a large number of aquaintances. But we party - boy do we party, every last one of us.

So, how do parents manage to raise such a menagerie? By being everything my parents are: strong, determined, dedicated, gentle, sensitive, loving, non-conformist, independent, hard-working, relentless, stern, educational, generous and forgiving during our early years... and being tolerant, wise, understanding, motivational, supportive, brave, sensitive, active and open-minded in our latter years. For me personally, they never held onto me too tightly and let me make my own decisions, but also let me know they were there for support and consultation *smile*.

Today I appreciate my parents as individuals, as companions, and my best source of life advice and support. I value their opinion not because of blind dependency, but because I have seen them prove their mettle and handle situations shrewdly & efficiently, yet with consideration of all involved. If I display even a fraction of those qualities one day when I have a family, I will consider myself a most worthy parent. Ok, enough broodiness. Hail to our parents!