How To Screw Your Kid Up So She Ends Up Perfect

I am just staring at my just-over-one-month-old daughter feeling sorry for her because I know, in one way or another, I am going to screw her up. It could be as simple as introducing her to a lot of unecessary hair products (one of my main vices), it could be as complicated as deflating her self-esteem on a continuous basis (I have been told that my snide comments have this effect).

I'm sticking my neck out when I say that all parents, no matter how good our intentions, will affect our children in good and in bad ways. It's human nature - we affect our own parents and family members, friends, colleagues and even enemies that way, so why not our own offspring who we will have even more close familial ties with? We can only cross our fingers, say a prayer, and hope that the damage we do is limited, and the joy we bring surpasses any, a lot of, or all of the hurt we will inadvertently inflict.

One of the issues I had with my parents growing up was their seeming paranoia that something bad would happen to me. There were times, especially in my teenage years when I felt like the princess in Sleeping Beauty - afraid that I would prick myself on a spindle, I was locked up and allowed only a few friends and limited activity. For instance, my curfew up until I was 18 was 10pm, and even then I had a nanny or a bodyguard tailing my every move. This is an example of my parents meaning well, because anyone living in the Philippines know that it is anything but safe, but it is also an example of how it made me realize the life I wanted to live was not the one I was living.

Cynics can point out how far I live from the roost now and say: See, she is escaping to a land far, far away. However, optimists (and I am one of them) can point out that because of that experience, I have forced myself to: follow other avenues outside the bubble of my (then) current existence, challenge myself to change the status quo that I was not happy with, expand my horizons and increase my level and capacity for independent living, among other things. Stretches in myself that I would not have thought possible or even necessary had my parents not put me through their definition of protection and my definition of lock-up.

So.

Here I am staring at my just-over-one-month-old daughter feeling a little better for her because I know, in one way or another, I am going to enrich her life in a way no one else can.