Same same but different

When I was younger, I don't know, maybe nine or ten, I had a pair of white shoes with a little heel.  They were, to me beautiful, mostly because I wasn't usually allowed to wear shoes with a heel, but these were my going out shoes.  They were also exactly the same as the "for best" shoes that my best friend had.  Not only were they white, with a heel, but they also had this pattern punched into them in the form of holes, sounds hideous, but they were very 80's, and that's my only defence.

This morning, a conversation at the breakfast table suddenly reminded me of those shoes.

Kai "You're the odd one out, you've not got long sleeves"

Mahe "Yeah, but you've got two sleeves on, you're the odd one out"

Lena "I's the odd one out, I've got this t-shirt on"

Kai "We're all the odd one's out"

There are often conversations like this around the table, about who's different and who's got the same.  For some reason being or not being (depending upon the day) the odd one out, is really, really important.  They like to copy each other too, Mahe often wants exactly the same breakfast as Kai, just to be the same.  I suppose it's how we learn this copying one another, and I suspect it may well get worse.  I've seen girls in particular want to be exactly like their friends.  But is it healthy?

As a parent, you want your child to be liked and have friends, but at the same time you really want them to still be them.  Not only that, but to stand up for what you believe in, even if no one else is, is something that is hard to do, but really important.

It might be the way we learn, by imitating one another, but it's also really really important to just be ourselves, which might mean that one day you're a princess playing with a train track, and another day you're performing on a stage in the garden.