I had a lovely birthday.
Despite not receiving your presents. Tight asses.
Anyway, I digress …
I want to write a post about being a parent.
Put simply, it’s amazing.
Better than I ever could have imagined.
But what is interesting is how parenting is often portrayed in advertising.
It’s either unicorns or hurricanes.
Soft focus or extreme disaster.
But the reality is in most cases, that’s just not true. It’s somewhere in the middle … where the love is always there, even though it sometimes manifests itself in ways that seem to suggest otherwise.
Years ago I asked Ros – who was a member of my team at Wieden – to go interview teenagers about something they remember their parents said or did to them that was hurtful, even though they know it wasn’t meant that way.
Everyone had one.
It may have been something really innocuous … something their parents can’t even remember saying or doing … but it was cemented in their feelings or memories.
Maybe an offhand comment.
Or a misplaced judgement.
Or a small disagreement.
Nothing major. For some, forgotten in a second. For others … remembered for a lifetime, even if the pain of it has long passed.
We made a cool little film about it called, ‘Parents Fuck You Up’ … I’ll try find it, because even though it’s in Mandarin, it’s something I’m sure we all relate to. I know I do.
I wrote years ago about the revelation I’d had of why I might like Birkenstocks so much.
When I was a kid, my Mum was trying to teach me how to tie my shoelaces. I just couldn’t get it. And she got so frustrated that she lost her shit with me.
It was the only time she was ever like that with me – and she felt bad about it her whole life, when she absolutely shouldn’t have – but that moment is seared in my brain, which may explain why I ended up loving shoes that have no laces.
Maybe.
I say this because I recently watched a repeat of an episode of Gogglebox. It was an episode that when I watched it the first time – back when I was in England – it made me laugh so much I had an asthma attack.
It’s not even that funny. But having a parent says this to their daughter is … because it’s far more reflective of our family relationships than advertising will ever capture honestly.
Enjoy. Have a great weekend.
And remember your kids remember stuff better than elephants
