It occurred to me yesterday morning on the Tube that I’ve a great deal to thank my Mum about.

I very rarely, if ever, “sit like a girl” when I occupy a seat, 99% of the time I sit with my legs apart “like a boy”, even when I’m wearing a (long) skirt.

As far as I can remember, I’ve always done this, and this got me thinking about other things that I “do like a boy”, and by extension, the behaviours that my Mum just didn’t make too much of a fuss about that would be against “typically girly behaviours” as I was growing up; She pretty much just let me get on with learning how to be me.

I had dolls, (which I tended to use more as balls or weights rather than petting over them) and also had “princess” dresses. However, I also had Mechano and Lego when I was very young, I climbed trees and ran about outside as I got older, in my teens I had a Chemistry set, a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum and asked for and received a Technical Lego set on my 15th birthday. I know I actively tried to be “more girly” at one point and made myself a “doll house” (the top of my dresser), but it was mostly me constructing walls and furniture for the dolls out of paper, plastic and card, rather than play-acting the “happily ever after lives” of the dolls.

I messed around with make-up, and mum bought me make up and books on how to apply it to my face but it wasn’t something that she said I “must” put on. (I rarely wear make up even now…)

Due to being both a very tall and quite a bit overweight apple-shaped girl, I never got into fashion either, and when my feet breezed past my Mum’s size 6 and ended up at a size 9 (and my nascent love of “pretty shoes” was thwarted) Mum helped me find clothes and shoes to help me feel and look my best, even through my totally “anti-fashion” phases. (Because, in a world of clothes designed for short pear-shaped women, when “nothing ever fits right, why should I bother?”)

Although she showed concern, she never insisted that I diet or restricted my food and, whilst suggesting that junk food was not the best thing for me, never tried to make me be something I wasn’t. She helped me drop fat when I chose to do so when I hit 17, but it was me that asked her for the help following a diet plan, not her that pushed me into doing it.

I realise now, that by allowing me to play with a range of things “across the gender divide”, by not guiding me into “all the pink toys and princess dresses”, and not pushing me towards fashion or make up or telling me that being fat was wrong, that what she gave me growing up was a very rounded socialisation – I was never forced to be “a girl”, I was encouraged to be my best and play to my natural strengths – which are actually opposite some of her’s (as she’s an Artist/Creative and a keen Gardener) as I’m rather focused around Logical/Latteral thinking (hence my superpower!), Science and IT.

I’ve found my own femininity and sexuality, my artist in dyeing and knitting and my green fingers via Bonsai and Orchids as I’ve grown older, but I really do have to say “Thank you Mum. You did a far better job of me than you give yourself credit for. Well done.”

Who do you need to be thankful for in your life? Also, do you need to forgive anyone for their past all-too-gendered socialisation behaviours towards you? Leave me a comment below and we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!