‘You were born you were perfect. You introduced imperfection.’

By Grace Sherwin

While enjoying a pot-of-tea-for-two with my mum over the holidays, I briefly alluded to one of the various injuries I sustained as a very silly fresher, the details of which I am too embarrassed to disclose. After taking an absurdly dramatic pause, she looked at me with such pitying disappointment, and came out with a statement that would rattle around in my poor head for many weeks following: ‘When you were born you were perfect. You introduced imperfection.’

This led me to ponder the (in my opinion) absurd notion adopted by many parents that their children are their perfect dolls that must infinitely remain in the pristine condition in which they were born. It goes without saying that parents should care for their child’s safety, however some take this to the extreme, having unrealistic expectations that one must float about life avoiding all danger, coated in a generous amount of bubble wrap, and donning a sturdy bike helmet. They seem to be unable to let go and accept that their children have free will of their own, and should be allowed to use it to sufficiently develop into independent young people. Sheltering one’s children from the world, a hellscape of constant threat of all levels, is simply unjust self-delusion.

They seem to be unable to let go and accept that their children have free will of their own, and should be allowed to use it to sufficiently develop into independent young people.

As an insufferable English student, this idea always takes me back to my A-level days of despising Nora Helmer in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, who treats her children as toys in her perfect world of self-delusion. Although, that was arguably a result of naivety and her spoilt upbringing, rather than extreme care for her children’s safety, so perhaps an unfair comparison on my part.

Saying all this, I am currently without children of my own, so it is impossible to know how I would feel in a parent’s shoes. I do however believe that by the time your child is old enough to hold the title of ‘silly fresher’, they are old enough to let go of these expectations and be free to make their own mistakes. Yes, this may ‘introduce imperfection’ as my mum would put it, but that is the inevitable hardship of this transaction we call life; to really live is to fall over once in a while.

Honestly, as if my mum happily sent me off to uni as a notoriously clumsy klutz and avid netball player, expecting me to return entirely unscathed. Yet, when I was inevitably forced to reveal to her the story of the aforementioned injury, she was shocked that her child, who was yet to complete a day of Year 2 without a newly grazed knee or fresh bruise, could be quite so silly. She very kindly sent a ‘Little Miss Whoops’ biscuit to me in the post though, so it was all worth it in the end.

It is difficult to say quite how serious my mum was with her statement, as she is an enigma to all, but the memories of her refusing to speak to me for a month after finding out I had secretly got a tattoo suggest there was at least a level of sincerity in these cutting words. She of course also believes any body-modification to be an ‘imperfection’, taking it very personally whenever I have returned home with yet another piercing or come downstairs with a different hair colour. ‘What happened to my perfect little blonde girl’ she’d say, her newly pink-haired daughter grinning proudly before her.

Of course, I would never do anything to myself simply to spite or upset her, I just like having fun hair, a few earrings, and the odd tattoo here and there. Yet it is so often seen as a personal attack, an act of defiance towards parents, when their children dare to change themselves from their idyllic states seen in childhood. Whether it is their fear of losing control or a genuine concern for their child’s job prospects, as many claim, fuelling this abhorrence, I will never understand the inability to accept that your child is not a perfect, precious doll, but their own person.

Though of course I was never perfect, even as a new-born. I was just yet to experience everything that has led to each bruise and scar I sport, each an experience that gave me a brilliant story to share and taught me something valuable. So, I will leave you with some of those wise lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way: never run Mary’s Mile in platform doc martens when it’s icy, keep an eye out for bollards in Market Square when returning home from a night out, and always take great care when going down the stairs dressed as an evil minion.