Support looks different depending on the day

I got my first paid subscriber this weekend. It was my dad, for those of you that were wondering. But with that subscription, a cascade of thoughts, and outright epiphanies sauntered in, starting with how cool it was to open my email and see that I had a paid subscription when I had just posted my first piece. Now, I did NOT know who it was at first, and I just thought, wow, man, my writing career is going to soar if I already have fans. And when I saw it was my dad, I thought, oh man, of all the fans, he might be my biggest. And then my mom subscribed, and I thought, wow, I have two biggest fans. And this is when the emotion kicked in. (My husband might be my biggest fan of them all, but that is a different story because today we are talking about parents.)

I thought, well, of course my parents subscribed, that’s what parents do! They support their children! And then I remembered that, no, not all parents do. In fact, based on the sheer number of children in our foster case system alone (over 200k nationwide) a significant amount of parents do not support their kids. Now, there are a lot of ways that children aren’t supported by their parents- don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to have CPS show up at your door to reflect neglect. It can be as simple as parents telling their kids that their dreams don’t matter, or that they can’t pursue the things that they are so clearly passionate about, or by not going to their soccer games because the entrance fee is $5 and even though you can afford that without batting an eye, you wait in your car rather than see your child try for a goal. The way my parents have supported me in just about anything I have ever done is nothing short of privilege, so how lucky am I?

Have I spent hours upon hours discussing my parents in therapy? Of-fucking-course, but for other reasons. However, none of those other reasons involved my parents not being my cheerleaders. I don’t have many memories of my childhood, but I know that neither of my parents ever told me I couldn’t follow whatever fucking insane thing I decided was my purpose or destiny for that week. When I turned our house into an art gallery to showcase my drawing skills, my parents paid the entrance fee. When I wanted to be a pop warner cheerleader (for one season) they took me to pick up my uniform. Same goes for piano (less than a year of lessons), tennis (less than six months of lessons), soccer (a venture that involved more cartwheels and daisy picking than running or scoring goals), softball (one season, outfield, but when picking out the team name, I was absolutely devastated that they did not choose my idea- Jim’s Blue Diamonds - because the coach was Jim, our uniforms were blue, and duh, baseball diamonds, and diamonds are a girl’s best friends and we all shimmered like diamonds so I have always been quite the wordsmith and they were all too blind to see it and went with something stupid like Jim’s Softball Team or whatever.) There was theater (this did end up a lifetime passion with many leading roles *curtsy*), modeling, moving to Texas, going to school to do hair, starting a clothing line, and now, here they are, subscribing to my writing feed, in yet another display of support.

Every ridiculous, or not-so-ridiculous endeavor was met with parents that cheered me on, and I know that not everyone gets to say that. I don’t think there has been one single moment of my life that my parents didn’t let me believe that I could be or do anything I put my mind to. This may ultimately lead to some other issues to discuss in therapy, like the idea that it is perfectly reasonable to believe that I would have throngs of fans after posting one, whole story here, but I would rather believe that I am capable of so much, than not believing in myself at all. So, thanks Mom and Dad for never holding me back from my delusions of grandeur. One day, this will be an empire and people will have me sign their books and we will be celebrating book deals and movie deals and I will just wave to my fans from the balcony of my Italian villa, and it will all be because you not only believed in me, but you taught me it was okay to believe in myself.

For those of you that did not have parents to cheer you on, support your dreams, and encourage you to follow your heart, I am sorry. Everyone deserves that. Yes, even you. You deserve to be loved, supported, and encouraged. You can’t go back in time, but you can nurture the small child that lives within you still. Buy the Barbie. Treat yourself to the cake your parents never treated you with. Be the person to yourself today that you needed then. I know it’s not the same, but it’s a start. So I leave you with this: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” - Tom Robbins

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash