With such a proficient baker in the house it's been a long time since I baked a cake. When my offspring were little, I did make all kinds of reasonable attempts - I like to think maybe my girly's passion was helped to ignite by the castle I constructed, maybe I could even locate some pictures of my early creations to show you. Since I last baked a victoria sponge, the food processor has broken, so today I used for the first time some new fangled thing that offered a comedy gold moment of being unable to turn off without making it go faster. This not only turned the mixture into a scrambled egg effect but also distributed much of it around the kitchen. Unable to make it anything like the batter I remember, I put it in the tins anyway, and they have at least turned out looking like cake, tho the crumbs that came off as I peeled the lining off don't exactly taste great.
I think this is a reasonable metaphor for my journey in many different areas these last 16 years. I only needed to be good enough to inspire her, I certainly didn't need to be an expert. As technology has advanced and I've not bothered to keep up, it means that she's now much better at using that technology. I've given her space and resources to explore her interest and skill in it, and her practice and my lack thereof means she now easily outshines me in competence in this area. This is what I think a lot of parenting is all about - setting them off, giving space, then sitting back and watch as they get way better than you :)
And in other fab news, I realise I wasn't much invested in how the cake turned out whereas in the past I might have worried that a cake could in some way show how great a parent I was, or how much she means to me - all that reading on letting go is beginning to pay off :D
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