"Your children cannot possibly be weirder than my children."
I know, at first glance it doesn't sound all that comforting. But it was my sister-in-law, mother of three who are older than mine and are all turning out just fine, becoming upstanding young adults I'm proud to have call me Aunty. (Except they don't, of course, because I'm not that old.)
So partly there was the comfort of thinking that any weirdness is genetic (and not from my side of the family, to boot), but mostly it was just nice to hear another mother admit that kids are weird. Kids have their little quirks and things and requirements and desires and demands and individualities, and they all end up being pretty much on the normal side of weird, so there's no need to worry. I like that.
Another thing I liked happened when I was explaining, in slightly embarrassed terms, the limited nature of Dash's diet to my aunt and uncle. They totally took it in their stride, and reminisced about a certain niece (not me) who always came to visit with her box of Corn Flakes in tow, because that was what she ate. (I was the niece who ate everything with a side of cranberry sauce for several years.)
It's quite possible that we were all deeply weird as children, but we got over it. Or at least, we grew up and learned the coping techniques that everyone uses to hide their internal weirdness from the outside world, to the appropriate degree.
They probably will too.
Refreshing to hear people treating normal childhood quirks as normal. And, as someone who turned out alright, I wholeheartedly agree!
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