By Comet N.
A Phenomenon of Building a Home out of an Empty Space
A certain type of nurturing comes during childhood that impacts our way of living later in life. One of those impacts comes from how we view family and family settings. Me, I grew up fantasizing a lot about having a family of my own- or rather having children. The concept of the family hood wasn’t fully comprehended, however, I craved the glimpses or make-believe of what a family is. A lot of other people do this by declaring to have many, less, or no kids at all based on this upbringing. Not until recently I was asked a life-changing question by a potential suitor “Are you emotionally mature?” did I start to get sensitized to what being with a person (to start with) truly entailed. It’s still scary up till now; events unfold that remain incomprehensible between me and my partner and also in how to handle our only child.
Playing House Done Easy
I grew up playing house. I made dolls out of “African” body wrappers and mat ropes to coordinate their parts. I enjoyed feeding the “cloth” doll even as I knew it was leaking right from the other end. I was an expert in assuming I was a mother who tended to a child. It brought about good feelings, it allowed me to exercise my nurturing skills, as I tended to something that wasn’t capable of doing so themself.
Between my childhood and early teen years, in retrospect, I’d have loved to be educated or advised more on what family hood was all about. Because the fantasy I engineered (both physically through dolls), and emotionally (through releasing happy chemicals due to it), kept me on the fantastical island for too long.
Family set-up is serious
I’m paying the price right now. For something I couldn’t help myself (and my parents as well at least), to correct. Returning from “Wonderland” came through real-life experience. The kind I’m living now. Thus, playing house turned serious. I’m now a mother who has to show up for her child needless of how I feel, my hands are a bit more tied than I did when I constructed the doll babies with the mat ropes famously back in the day. I have to sit up and act as a role model. When I relapse from doing so, I beat myself up and retry painfully again. This rollercoaster has changed my perspective of what family and family settings are all about. It’s a serious affair. It involves real human beings and not dolls. Real humans to cater to without leakage from the other end, a partner whose feelings to consider and with whom you look up to assist with raising the kid — unlike when I played house and used my cousins and little sisters as maids (LOL).
Building a home is all about sacrificing your time and energy toward a greater good — mostly to do with maintaining togetherness — not merely by blood as I presumed. It’s a serious affair that requires forgiveness, compromise, and tolerance as a lot of unexpected irritants are bound to test you. All in all, having a family or creating one isn’t an easy feat, therefore we ought to strive to have the backs of the ones we call one. Playing house on the other hand can be detrimental to one’s mental health, you live in a supposed world as opposed to the real one.
But what makes up a family?
A blood relative, a real friend, a confidant, a soulmate, anyone you hold dear to your heart is one.
Playing with family is not assuming responsibility for what you have. It is for fun. Whereas setting up a family, be it with just a partner or within kids involved is serious. Understanding this phenomenon will greatly improve how you treat those ones you hold dear to your heart, your family. Any kind.
