It Starts Early

My parents have done such an incredible job raising me. They never crossed the line between parent and friend, and frankly, my friend is the last thing they wanted to be. Now that I'm older, my parents have both become my friends, but they set clear and defined boundaries growing up.

Little, in particular, loved rules. Especially those that limited our vocabulary. We weren't allowed to say anything similar to hate, stupid, dumb, shut up, idiot, moron, dork, hate, and so and so forth. Refusal to comply was met with either a wooden spoon to the bum or a mouth full of soap.

We also weren't allowed to call defecation "pee" or "poop," nope, for us it was "tinkle" and "BM." To this day, that's how I think of it.

However, I thank my parents now for that extreme word limitation because I think it really spurred the creativity of all three of us. When we were angry and wanted to call each other names we had to think outside of the "stupid" box and create new names such as "Chair Face" or "Violin Head." One particularly infuriating put down was being called "CarePants" by my brother. Now aside from the inevitable hypersensitivity (yes, calling my brother a Blockhead did earn me a spanking, and yes, saying the word "dookie" did lead me to get my mouth washed out with soap, and yes, being called a Log Head did break my heart, hurt my feelings and make me cry buckets), the rules bred, I am convinced that the extreme measures are what sparked the creativity that now define me and my siblings.