Letting your child draw on those walls here!!! Translated…
Little Tapioca is five, and was, happily, drawing on the walls, as mom saw, she’d put a stop to it, and Little Tapioca asked in a matter-of-fact manner, “how come you can and I can’t?” Turns out, she meant how her mother had, made her stand by the walls since she’d turned one, and every six months, she’d had her stand, and marked her head with a pencil and ruler, and dated it, and, those lines that marked her growth, was no different than Little Tapioca’s own doodling on the walls, she’d felt taken: how come mommy can do it, and I can’t?
On the weekends, Little Tapioca went to grandma’s, and, grandma opened up an entire wall for her to paint on, all four of her great aunts encouraged her, “go ahead, draw your heart out! You future female Picasso!”, grandma told her, just draw on the walls as you want to, after the walls are covered up, I’ll just, paint it over. And, Tapioca became, confused, how come mommy and grandma are both adults, and they’d had, dual standards for her?
“Of course, we shouldn’t have double standards, otherwise, the child would be, ill-adapted.”, as I, the eldest great aunt started, my son gave me away, “You’d used stricter ways with others, but more lenient toward yourself, mom, you’re exactly like her mom.”
What he was talking about was as I was teaching in community college, I’d once mentioned that there was a student who was working as a parking lot attendant to earn his own tuition, back then, I’d told my son, that you will be affected by those you interact with, that student could have had better opportunities, and look at him, falling to the bad ways, I’d wanted my son to stay away from him. A couple of days later, he’d mentioned again, how a friend of his, in order to pay up his own father’s debts, started working at the shady places at night, and studied hard in school during the daytime, I’d became interested, “a young man who worked hard to achieve, amazing!”, and, my son coughed dryly twice, said, “Mom, I’d been telling you about the same person, you are very polarized in your comments of him being amazing and awful.” I’d thought about it more, than, I realized, that I’d, walked, into a trap.
from the papers…
Later on, I’d gone to class in community college, the lecturer told a story: a young man who’d gone to meditate at a temple started having cigarette cravings, and he’d asked the monk in charge, if he could smoke while he’d recited the Buddhist verses? The monk in charge told him definitely not, that it’s, a show of lack of respect toward the Gods! The young man then used a different method to inquire, “can I smoke and recite the verses at the same time?”, the monk, without thinking said, “Surely!”. It’s actually, the same things? And, even without himself knowing, the man in charge of the Buddhist temple, had, fallen into the trap of duality, and we, are ordinary people.
In Little Tapioca, fighting hard for her own rights to draw on the walls, her mother finally, compromised, and learned from her grandmother, opened up a wall for her to doodle on, and, Little Tapioca named the wall, “Happiness”, and now, she has, two walls she could, draw on already, but still, she’d started, calling out to her four great aunts, “Is there a happiness wall for me at your home too?”, holy! This young lady really knows how to get her way, how many “happiness walls” would be enough, to satisfy her desires to draw?
a place, to exercise their artistic tendencies…photo from online…
And so, here, we learned, how easy it is, to point a finger, and NOT realize that THREE fingers ARE, pointing BACK at you, if you don’t have any missing limbs, and that how the children can find ways to squeeze through the cracks, like this little girl, having gotten her mother to allow her a wall to draw on, started, scamming for all the other walls at her great aunts’ houses.
Life, the Obstacle Course 