It is a completely undeniable fact that in setting out guidelines and rules for our children; how we react to their behaviour; in essentially everything we say and do as parents, there lay clues as to who we really are as not only parents, but also as individuals. Not only are we leaving imprints of our own personalities on our children (undoubtedly this is how we all end up like our parents in the end), but if we look closely enough (read: if we’re brave enough), we may be able to see some interesting idiosyncrasies about ourselves. I first thought of this the other day as I was watching my son play with play dough.

My rules for the play dough are simple: don’t eat it and don’t mix the colours together. There Jaden was, happily mixing the blue, white and red together (and this was only the third time I’d given him more than one colour at a time to play with). I felt myself growing agitated and asked Jaden to stop mixing. He turned to me and said “Why mommy?” Why indeed. After all, four buckets of play dough were less then two dollars. And it’s not like mixing colours somehow makes the dough stop working - in fact what better way to learn that red and blue make purple? I was certainly allowed to colour mix as a child, though I never did. And then it hit me - as I said okay to Jaden for lack of a reason as to why not, I saw the dark truth. The fact of the matter was that not wanting the colours to be mixed was more a commentary on my…err…..obsessive (?!? I prefer uber-organized) personality than any logical reason. I like order, and somehow mixed dough colours represents chaos. Maybe this is just my analytical side expressing itself (ie rearing its ugly head), but clearly I need to lighten up and let go a little.

As I said, I did not mix dough colours as a little girl - it just never looked as pretty when it was all mixed together, just not quite as neat. But if that’s some kind of weird trait of mine(I’m still in denial, and therefore not ready to name it…), I certainly should not enforce it on my son. Let him discover that dark secret about himself - if it exists - by mixing his own dough.  So, after consenting to the atrocity that was mixing three colours of play dough, I backed quietly into the kitchen and set about reorganizing my spice cabinet.