Probably everyone has an episode from childhood that is not forgotten, and which still causes painful memories and regrets. It may have had a great influence for a lifetime. It is said that if you share it with someone who has had it, it will be easier. So let’s try.
When I was 9-10 years old, my parents bought me a set of flomasters. They just started selling them, and I crazyly dreamed of them. But I always had to be content with what was left of my older sister, or what was given by someone from relatives or acquaintances. I thought it was enough, and I didn’t even hope. Nobody forbids dreaming, right? And then suddenly I get a large set of flormasters. This was the first miracle.
And I started creating. I built my city for a whole year. There were more than two dozen families. I made them houses, furniture, pets. More precisely, they created all this for themselves, because each resident had a profession and had full-fledged commodity-money relations. I opened a thick notebook, where I set the salaries, prices for each category of goods. The entire economy of the city was developed for about a month. In short, it was a paper-carton resemblance of the current Sims. Everything was painted and cut out with great love in those moments when the sister was not at home, and the mother was either at work or slept off after the shift. Because my sister could ruin my unseen city. And Mom... Mom would always find what was not done at home. Well, in any case, I hid it from my dad. Little of something. In other words, I made out of everyone. The city was placed in a small cardboard box, which I pushed onto my shelf and wrapped with toys on top so that no one could see it.
At the same time, a second miracle happened. I was invited to my birthday with a classmate. It was unusual in itself. I never had a birthday in my life because I was lucky to be born three days after my parents’ wedding anniversary. Therefore, the celebration was annually. But not mine. There were guests. Friends of parents. And I was sitting with my older brother and sister in our shared little bedroom, where the children of the guests, older than I was, were brought and we were given the same plates with food. I still hate my birthday.
On that birthday, a second miracle happened. The parents of the classmates organized for us, invited children, competitions with prizes. Everyone got a gift. I got a big notebook. It was so beautiful, of a gentle blue color, decorated with beautiful shells on each page that I had been afraid to use it for a long time, just picked it up, kissed it and cleaned it back. But at some point the inspiration fell on me, and I, carefully pulling out the letters so that everything was beautiful, began to write in it a fairy tale about a girl who fell into the underwater kingdom, and her numerous adventures there. I wrote for a long time, and I also pulled out of everyone. The notebook was hidden in the same box as the city, because my sister liked to wool my boxes on an object that could hurt me even more and blackmail me.
The city has grown and flourished. Public institutions appeared, children were born and grew up. The lines of calculation between families were extended. The booklet was over, and the wonderful adventures of my heroine were coming to an end.
And one day I came back in a great mood from a walk, and next to the wall closet (oh, horror!) There was a bunch of my toys, ruthlessly thrown off the shelf. Mom arranged the general cleaning, and thoroughly taunted my dad so that he would put the order on my shelf. My hysteria, as always, did not end. All my few treasures, almost without looking, were dumbly divided into two parts and two-thirds flew into the rubbish pipeline. But, as I found out later, I was in vain. The box I didn’t even look into, my city, a notebook with laws, prices and bills, a magical notebook and a new set of flommasters flew into the rubbish pipeline first when I didn’t come. I don’t know if anything changed if my parents looked into that box. I doubt very much. After all, from their point of view, everything I did in my free time was nonsense and rubbish.
No more toys, no more things, I was attached. The city did not. I did not write stories. It was boring and fresh to live. But to be interested in something I have been afraid since then. So is easier. without a loss.
But people, I still don’t understand. How can you do this to children?