My philosophy teacher always said that "if one day someone puts a banana on their head, they will call it crazy, but if we all do it, not everyone will be crazy, but it will be normal." The normal. What others do. What everyone does. What it takes. What others expect you to do. What is fashionable.
Who determines what is normal and what is not? Who determines what should be fashionable now, but not in a few years? Because a few years ago we were all wearing bell pants and now if you put them on they can even laugh at you, but from now on they will not be in liza again and then we will be normal.
What happens when your child is different, when he does things that others don't do? Two things can happen, that parents allow it to be different, despite the looks and teasing of others, or not accept it and pretend to go through the hoop of what is considered "to be one more", despite of what that could make your son unhappy. In the video clip of the song 'The Light', by HollySiz, both positions are represented and in just 3 minutes and 52 seconds he gives us an incredible message, full of topics to be treated. Do you think you have a different child than others and that scares you? Don't miss the video.
The danger of not accepting your child for being different
Boys wear pants, girls dress. This says the theory, right? Well, the theory says 50 years ago, because now boys wear pants, but sometimes girls do too. And he says it only if we talk about here, because in Scotland there are those who go with skirts, right?
This is the reflection that a father like that of the video clip can make, but to get there it is possible that he has gone through the process of not understanding the difference, of not understanding that there are children who do not need to be one more, or they don't have the need to be so normal that they run the risk of being invisible, but they just want to be happy and do what they feel, even if it creates teasing.
Then the problems appear: Do I do what I feel, at the risk that they laugh at me, or do I stop doing what I feel and what makes me happy to be admitted to the world of "normal"? The first can be very hard, a lot, but the second can be devastating, because becoming part of the pile and being admitted by "normal people", who turn out to be terribly disrespectful and do not accept the difference makes you, in a way , be one of them. And they are considered normal being like this? Because not accepting others for what they are shouldn't be considered normal, right?
A few months ago I was lucky enough to see a speech by Lana Wachowski (formerly Larry Wachowski), known for directing the Matrix trilogy with her brother. A speech in which he talked about his condition, his life, the change, how he lived his childhood and his youth and emphasized something that happens to children who feel different and are treated as such: many grow up struggling to belong to some group and many times they realize that they don't really have any peer group. If they dress like what they aren't, like the boy in the video, they don't feel comfortable in the boys 'group, but they don't find their place in the girls' group either. This can lead to the point of feeling a freak, someone who is not well, a person who will never be accepted by anyone, who will never be loved and, as such, can make decisions as hard as trying to take his own life.
Did I just say suicide? Yes it is. Many people say they don't understand how someone can kill themselves. That is because he is not able to put himself in the shoes of others. For many people suicide is a flight to liberation. The only way out after they realize that the world they live in doesn't accept them. And beware, it's not always a "don't accept me". Sometimes it is simply a "I think they do not accept me", because many parents do not even know that their children live every day an immense internal struggle that torments them and makes them feel as if they do not deserve to exist.
Is there a way out? Probably yes. For Lana there was, although everything was the result of a coincidence, and that's why she explains it in the video (you can activate the subtitles in Spanish if you don't know English). You just need to understand that it is not you, different, who has a problem, but everyone else, those who consider themselves normal, those who are not well. They are the monsters. They are the ones that are "broken" from the inside.
The day dad decides to be different too
That's why the last seconds of the video are worth an empire. A father who does not accept his son, who is ashamed of him because he does not follow the conventions marked by society (which, as I say, are the ones we know, but depending on the place and time they could be others), ends up realizing that his Happiness depends on it, on being able to be himself, on being able to be who you want to be and how you want to be, and it is demonstrated with an act full of message and strength: "What does it matter to me what others think. never tell you who you should be or how you should behave. " That is the message you send to your child and that is the message that all parents, of all children, should send to their children. It is not the different that has to fight to overcome it, it is the others who have to review their values.
Is not the future in the hands of those who are capable of breaking molds and doing things never seen before? Because in the video there is talk of a difference in relation to gender, but the differences today cover much more: how you are, how you speak, how you behave, how you dress, how you feel, how ... it's all right. As I said a few weeks ago when I talked about Clara, the girl with Down syndrome who was a model: let's start value more what makes us different and unique.
Video | Youtube
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