The Split Lip That Made Me Rethink My Furniture

My son came home today with a bleeding lip.

I thought it was a fist fight, but it turned out it wasn't one. The funny thing is that nobody hit him. He ducked away from a fist and caught his lip on the corner of a chair. That was the story he told me and I'm choosing to take it at face value.

When I found out I was having a boy, I had all sorts of stereotypes in my head about what it would be like. Boys play rough at school. Boys get a surge of testosterone at some point in their teenage years and start smashing things up.

When he was still a baby, I decided I didn't want anything breakable or anything nice in the house, in case one day he smashed it.

Years later, I look back and think it's actually been fine. We survived the toddler years with minimal breakage.

Then I thought about the house furniture. Do I only want to live with things I won't mind being broken, just so I never have a nice thing get broken?

That idea bothers me a bit. "I'm not having nice things in case they get broken." Basically, I'm choosing to live with less nice things for the next ten years because something might get damaged.

There's a mindset behind that, I don't know what word it is. I'm settling for mediocre because I'm afraid? and that I'd rather not have something nice at all than have a nice thing get broken?

I think it's connected to my beliefs about money, and I'm passing them on to my son without meaning to.

I used to buy him nice toys from Toys r Us but when it used to break soon after, I thought, "What's the point of buying new toys if they just get broken?" So now I buy him cheap toys and second-hand toys. At one point I heard him say "no point in buying white shoes because they'll get dirty straightaway" and it sounded like he was parroting me. The thing is I agree with him but it got me thinking: so that means he will never buy white shoes because its impractical even if he wants to wear white shoes just as long as it lasted?

It's been a good chance to reflect. Having kids makes you see things from a different angle, because they throw you a curveball every week or so, and it's always something random. More things for the brain to process!