In those days, when I still believed that the thunderstorm was moving away from the ritual “Holy, Holy,” I was worried about the question of why cute boys loved other girls, but did not notice me.
One day my mother and I were sitting in the room on a summer evening, shaking with fear. A thunderstorm was raging outside the window, the light and, in principle, the electricity in the house was turned off, the mirrors were curtained, the only refuge – the sofa sheltered two frightened women, forty-year-old and five-year-old me. We moved our palm near our foreheads and drove away the thunderstorm with the words “Holy, holy.” Now my husband and I are holding our stomachs when I tell this story, but before everything was very serious.
Of course, I believed in supernatural forces, including my own, because the storm was leaving.
But I believed even more that if someone doesn’t love me, sooner or later they will love me.
Back then, I didn’t know that this was just the art of PR.
I grew up as a very serious child. But at the same time, she felt inferior.
I was considered eccentric, and the girl next door fueled this idea in the minds of other guys, so the anti-PR really ruined my life.
Where it all started.
In kindergarten, I liked a boy to whom I wanted to show my coolness by the fact that Jean Claude Van Damme would come and pick me up from the garden, proudly carrying me on his muscular tanned shoulder. And in this way I wanted to solve the problem of my unlikability. Coolness is an alternative to lack of beauty. Well, that's a great idea, isn't it? And now many people think so, making friends with stars in order to raise their ratings instead of changing themselves.
A little later, when nothing worked out, I began to think about real ways to attract his attention.
And I realized that I was in trouble.
I’m five, and I can’t put on makeup and preen myself, because my mother sees me as a baby bug, and not a woman. Yes, mom, because she was my only teacher in those days, she didn’t let me listen to my sister and dad, “they say two boots are a match, if they don’t listen to her, that means they’re bad.”
The other girls were pretty, one had her ears pierced since she was three! And they cut my hair into a bob, supposedly so that my head wouldn’t hurt.
“I can’t be a woman at 5 years old.” – this is the bitter realization of that period.
I have always been an order of magnitude more ridiculous than my most advanced peers.
Slightly worse outfits, shorter hair, full belly, stooped, pale skin, blue bags around the eyes, snub nose, often sick.
No, I wasn't ugly. And I had my own fans, even girls. I just didn't think I was beautiful enough for the people I liked.
Do you know what all this means?
And the fact that all children are the same adults, only locked in small bodies and forced to wait until the body gets stronger in order to do what an adult should.
So, if parents learned to give their children the opportunity to feel like adults, then we would see not infantile schoolchildren and students who, even at twenty-six, are not able to take responsibility for themselves (and even more so for anyone else), but brilliant teenagers , who have graduated from school externally and are already creating new inventions, works of art and other things useful to society.
If my childhood desire to be liked by the best boys had not been suppressed even then, if this issue had been resolved then, I think I would have been able to calmly switch to my favorite writing path, never again worrying about problems with my appearance.
However, the unresolved issue of self-sufficiency hung over me for the next twenty years, until I finally achieved what I wanted.
Parents should instill confidence in their children regarding appearance. They should help to see in themselves who the child considers himself to be. Every child initially considers himself a successful, handsome, smart superhero, and not a chubby little pooping dependent.
There will be no delusions of grandeur if you allow your child to consider himself grown-up and cool. There is no need to convince him that he is better than others; let all children be cool and capable.
There won't be any orgies if you let the girls consider themselves fatal beauties. You can explain the rules of decency and teach self-defense, and not convince her that she is just a funny farting child.
Mom, dear, if you are reading this book, then please do not be offended. It's not about you, I'm sure you were raised the same way. Many other women around the world are raised this way. That's how it is. Either because we are afraid of pedophiles, or because of social security services, we try to deceive our plump dependents for as long as possible that they are children and have no business playing adult games.
Maybe something should be changed? What do you think?