When I was a child, I would get furious with my mother when she refused to make charts and posters for my class. Every few weeks, a student was selected to make chart based on the lesson that was taught in class and this was put go on the wall. I would dread the arrival of my turn, because I knew that either I would have to make the chart myself, or I would just have to say that my mother did not have the time (or the inclination) to do it. I generally ended up making the charts myself.
I'm no Picasso, so obviously, they didn't turn out very good. As a result of which they were not put up! All my hard work for nothing! I would look longingly at the other beautiful charts in class and feel disappointment, anger, and a twinge of envy. Disappointment that my chart was not up with the others, anger at my mother and envy of my classmates who had much more obliging mothers.
It wasn't until much later that I thought, "Why the hell should the teachers expect mothers to make the charts for their kids? Make the kids do it themselves! So what if it isn't neat and tidy and they have coloured outside the lines? At least they're learning something new!" And instead of encouraging a little kid who, might I say, did her very best to make the chart as pretty as possible, which wasn't an easy task (I'm creative with my words, not my hands), you just shove her chart into the cupboard to be eaten by termites? It broke my heart. I was like a little puppy hankering for petting and being told, "Good boy, you!"
I don't think the experience left me with permanent scars. Sure, I'm still apprehensive when it comes to art work. Sure, it made me want to scream at my mom about why she couldn't be more like other mothers who made as many pop-up charts as their kids required. Sure, it made me resent my teachers for asking so much of me. But it's definitely not one of those things that I'm likely to cry about in front of my therapist (imaginary, of course). Pretty much like a puppy, my broken heart was temporary, fixed and forgotten in a nanosecond. That's the nice thing about being a kid, you let things go. And hey, it made me more independent, more resilient. I learnt how to do my assignments on my own (thankfully, most of them were written). I have never really managed to make a beautiful chart all on my own though. Oh well, nobody's perfect!
