It's Not Normal To Be Normal

At my work, I have the opportunity to interact with parents and children on a daily basis.

As I grow older, I notice more and more things about the way parents raise their children. Parents are very self-conscious when it comes to their children. Each child is "advanced for their age," because no one wants to say that their kid is average. They push their children to whiz through the different steps of development in order to become the best they can be.

In the same way that no one wants their child to be average, no one wants their child to be abnormal. Because of this, many parents push their children into specific boxes: 'boy', 'girl', 'you're too old for this', etc. I don't know how many times I've suggested building toys to a customer for their daughter/granddaughter/niece, and the answer is not that the child doesn't like to build, but that the child is a girl. Or that they wouldn't buy their daughter a toy car or a train set, simply because she isn't a boy. Likewise, parents are irked beyond belief when their son wants a princess castle. They tell their son that what he wants is "for girls" and that he should prefer a knight's castle, or a pirate boat, or something equally masculine.

I always become so sad after hearing these kinds of exchanges between parents and children. What's so wrong about a child playing with a certain toy? Why do we have to teach them at such a young age that what they prefer is wrong? We're not talking about telling children to share, or not to fight, or things like that, or that what they want is out of their price range. Teaching children how to behave and how to know what is and isn't right is important. However, we're telling a boy it's wrong to play with a doll, and a girl that it's wrong to play with cars, and that's just silly. Haven't we moved passed these notions as a society?

What happens if your child turns out to be gay? Then what? It won't have been the result of your child playing with the 'wrong' gender toys, that's for sure. If you've taught your child his or her whole life that their preferences in life are wrong, how will they approach you and confide in you as a trust-worthy person? Once again, this might just be me and overthinking things as I always do, but I believe that this stuff is all connected. Children grow older and one day realize that their parents are not perfect, and that not everything that their parents have taught them is right. Depending on their upbringing, however, their relationship with their parents will either stay strong, or fall apart.

I most definitely blame my parents for my deepest problems and because my problems stem from things that we never talked about openly as a family, at 22 I still feel it impossible to tell them about these problems. However, I do consider myself to be lucky in my upbringing: My parents never tried to make me normal, I was pushed to work hard and become a good person, and am equally grateful.

Being a parent is no doubt a huge responsibility, and I'm not saying that people who teach their children such things are bad people. Kids don't come with a parenting manual. People are all just trying their best to prepare their kids for the world. But let your kids make some decisions sometimes. They'll thank you in the long run.