Monday's child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

I was a Thursday's child so not sure that I'm 100% behind this peom. Although, looking at socio-economic background, I suppose I have gone far compared with my parents. I suppose some people would consider having four children as having gone too far so perhaps... Lol.

I was thinking about this little peom this morning as E was on another of her irritable hours and it struck me that she was born on a Wednesday haha! It did lead me to think some more though about expectations and stereotypes that we inadvertently impose on our children. There are things that we put on our children ourselves. For example, I caught myself saying to J the other day "when you go to university" without really thinking about it. It wasn't until later that it occurred to me that he may not want to go to uni. I'm certain that he has the capabilities but he is very much like me and I don't think that I'd have opted to go to university when I was 18, even if I'd had a more stable childhood and had the opportunity. What is the impact of these passing comments and imposed expectations? Will he automatically assume that he's going to uni, or could it possibly make him suffer should he decide he doesn't want to? Will he be afraid of disappointing us, and would we even be disappointed? It's a scary thought how much we can influence our children by passing comments but I think what scares me the most is the inability to know how much we're influencing them and what exactly the impact of that influence will be.

And then there's expectations and decisions based purely on gender. I was going through my airing cupboard earlier and came across J's old Toy Story bedding (Buzz Lightyear themed) and threw it aside for storage. I had in mind that it may come in useful again if we ever foster another boy. All this going through my mind and it never occurred to me to offer them to Sophie or Mae despite them both loving the Toy Story films - they were boys' bedding... This sort of gender expectation has been rattling round in my mind on and off for a few months, ever since reading about Gender Neutral Parenting a while back. What I've read has raised some interesting thoughts regarding stereotypes and their impact. I personally think that GNP is pretty scary tbh but it has made me think.

Going back to the poem, apparently M will work hard for a living. Bit of a shame for her really as she missed being fair, wise, good and gay by about 20 minutes, just think, if I'd held on for a few more minutes, she'd be GOOD! Damn! S is also full of woe (tell me something I don't know lol), and J is lucky enough to have been born on the Sabbath (wonder when that's gonna kick in?).

I know it's just a bit of fun but it's definitely food for thought!