To a five year old kid, the world can be a place filled cruel injustices. Mean, spiteful, vindictive injustices issued by the most powerful forces in the universe - your parents. I’m a person naturally inclined to question, analyse and challenge (until life broke me, but that’s another story) and as I kid I’d always wonder why a situation was the way it was. And if I thought it wasn't right I wouldn't hesitate to voice my concerns, to the horror of my parents.
I have this vivid memory of looking up at them as a kid yelling,“You’re not the boss of me, I’m the boss of my own life!” But oh, how wrong I was. They were the bosses, and if I wanted to stay under their roof and eat their food and use their electricity I had to obey. So our family existed in a state of unhappy tension for pretty much my entire childhood. Parent coaches, smackings, groundings, yellings, tears, pleading, nothing tempered my rebelliousness. I was defiant till the end.
So imagine my embarrassment when I look at my life now and realise I’m doing every single thing my parents used to ask me to do, if not more...
But there is one thing that I said I would always do as a kid and by god I’ve kept that promise…
As a child the entire scope of my existence boiled down to obtaining and ingesting sugar. And nothing has changed. I work so that I can afford sugar. I hit Tesco every night after work to buy sugar. I exercise so that I can eat more sugar. I order sugar at restaurants. And every time I’m eating a plate of Christmas pudding with custard instead of dinner, or a giant banana split instead of dinner, or a block of Cadbury fruit & nut washed down with Pepsi for dinner, I smile to myself – This is for you, parents. You told me I couldn't and now I can. I FINALLY CAN! I will eat that entire pack of Digestives. I will finish that tub of ice cream. I WILL dunk raw cookie dough in chocolate fudge, because I was once caged, and now I am free.
Then my inner child smiles at me and we give each other a high five.
I have this vivid memory of looking up at them as a kid yelling,“You’re not the boss of me, I’m the boss of my own life!” But oh, how wrong I was. They were the bosses, and if I wanted to stay under their roof and eat their food and use their electricity I had to obey. So our family existed in a state of unhappy tension for pretty much my entire childhood. Parent coaches, smackings, groundings, yellings, tears, pleading, nothing tempered my rebelliousness. I was defiant till the end.
So imagine my embarrassment when I look at my life now and realise I’m doing every single thing my parents used to ask me to do, if not more...
But there is one thing that I said I would always do as a kid and by god I’ve kept that promise…
As a child the entire scope of my existence boiled down to obtaining and ingesting sugar. And nothing has changed. I work so that I can afford sugar. I hit Tesco every night after work to buy sugar. I exercise so that I can eat more sugar. I order sugar at restaurants. And every time I’m eating a plate of Christmas pudding with custard instead of dinner, or a giant banana split instead of dinner, or a block of Cadbury fruit & nut washed down with Pepsi for dinner, I smile to myself – This is for you, parents. You told me I couldn't and now I can. I FINALLY CAN! I will eat that entire pack of Digestives. I will finish that tub of ice cream. I WILL dunk raw cookie dough in chocolate fudge, because I was once caged, and now I am free.
Then my inner child smiles at me and we give each other a high five.
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