firecat: red panda, winking (Default)
firecat (attention machine in need of calibration) ([personal profile] firecat) wrote2021-08-31 07:47 pm

Parent–child relationships (Comment posted else-net)

"Some parents get really upset when their kids diverge from their headcanons about them."

A great deal of the difficulty in my relationship with my mother just dissolved away to nothing when I read this sentence.

My mother is gone so this difficulty has been living entirely in my head for ten years. I mean, I still have feelings about her having wanted me to be different, but there's something healing about interpreting her want that way. Because I know that, while headcanons can be very emotionally compelling, they're only in your head. They aren't a Great Truth of the Universe or a Moral Imperative.*

*except a couple of mine :D
lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2021-09-01 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
Are you the only daughter?

I'm their only child - I was the first child they had, mum almost died in childbirth, she was told not to have any more children.