drie susters en ‘n ma

I’ve come across this question so many times in my life.  Is what I perceive as normal, the same normal for everybody else? Who are we to judge people as not being normal? Where do we draw the line between normal and abnormal? Who defines normal?

My uneducated opinion is that one aspect is a person’s upbringing and the influences that they had during those years.  In saying that I specifically refer to the choices we make when we are raising our children.  Are we sure we’re always on the right track.  I’m being very honest in saying that I’ve doubted myself so many times.  Giving a hiding where a harsh word would have done the trick as well, buying them sweets/toys just to keep them busy so that you can have a break or finish whatever you’re doing? Treating one kid different because he’s got a different personality? Are we creating and feeding their “normal” personalities by the way we bring them up?

Our two sons is 6 years apart, and not only that, their personalities are a million years apart.  When the baby (just turned 2 years) eventually showed up, my eldest has grown accustomed to being an only child for almost 6 years, and I think we obviously over compensated for that by trying to make his life as interesting as possible by basically giving him everything he wanted. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a brat (I would rather rate the second one as the brat) and he loves his little brother to bits. He prayed non stop for a year for his little brother.  But when the baby arrived, Ian was all of a sudden not the centre of attraction anymore.  What he perceived as normal for six years, all of a sudden changed instantly, obviously so did our lives having a baby at the age of 31! Getting back to the question of normality - would Ian have become a different type of person if Henk was never born? Would his sense of normality have been the same as it is currently?

Does a kid’s genes play a huge role in determining his perception of normal? It is well known that phychological disorders are sometimes hereditary. I’m having my eldest tested for ADD soon, but in his little world he is normal and who am I to say that it’s not normal? I’m convinced that his dad has got ADD as well, so by the way …

The grade 1 that he’s doing is NOT the grade one that we went to many moons ago.  Stii and I were talking and for the life of me neither one of us can remember EVER getting homework up to grade 2 or 3.  My son is 7 years old and he can basically read everything in Afrikaans & English. And that’s “normal”. I feel that kids should be able to still play outside in the sun, feel what rain on their skin feels like, get their hands dirty and play in mud and just be able to be a kid.  There is ample time when they grow up to experience the pressures of everyday life. Let them just be normal - kids!