It's Just History Repeating

You know that point in your life where you do something and suddenly realise you saw your father do it and your grandfather do it before him? Well last Saturday I it happened again, only this time it was in reverse, I saw Nathalie do something I had done when I was younger and it got me thinking how similar we are. I know that probably sounds obvious, as a parent you get used to people saying things like, "Doesn't she look like you," or "You sound just like your father," well I realised on Saturday that Nathalie takes after me in one area which is good and unfortunately on Tuesday night we found out that she takes after me in a less positive way.

But back to the good point, she has a feel for layout and presentation and gets it spot on everytime - okay you could say my blog doesn't reveal any great talent from me but I've sold articles, produced in-house office manual, won competitions etc for writing where one of the most important considerations is presenting - one of the judges comments for one competition I won was that it had 'real eye appeal,' and Nats is the same. I was rubbish at art, my Dad was a very good painter and artist I can't draw a straight line with a ruler but I do know about presentation and when I saw her article for a school newspaper I was chuffed to bits.

On Tuesday night we had the downside to parenting, she is being bullied at Scouts and apparently it's being going on since Christmas and she hasn't said anything. This took me back to my childhood when I was bullied from ages 12-14 and I ended up with such low self esteem I tried to commit suicide. I never told anybody and in fact I was so ashamed that I only mentioned it to Janis about two years ago when a colleague at work said she'd been bullied, I was talking to Janis when I got home and happened to say "Oh Carol was bullied as well," to which she replied, "What do you mean as well?" We'd been together for twenty two years but I hadn't mentioned it, it had gone into that mental vault never to be opened again until a remark by a colleague brought it to the surface.

Anyway, back to Nathalie, when the Scout masters found out what was happening they went mad, one of them went to see Janis at work and explained the whole situation to her. The problem is that Nathalie thought being treated the way she was, was normal - which makes it even worse. She was bullied two years ago at school and fortunately the school had a zero tolerance policy and it was quickly stamped on.

Sometimes I really worry about her because I can see so much of me in her, she can be a loner as well as being the centre of everything. She'll try anything and everything and once she gets good at it she'll stop doing it, something I've been good at over the years (work excepted) but that doesn't mean that's a bad thing, better to try it all than none at all surely?