Does the 1st pancake always turn out less than ideal?
I’m the 1st Pancake | 100 Days of Wonder #12
[TRANSCRIPT]
Hey friends, I actually liked talking into the microphone yesterday. So I just decided to do so again for today. But today, I actually talk about a specific subject and not just do a log or anything.
I was wondering about this:
does the first pancake always turn out less than ideal?
You know, when you're baking a pancake, and the first one “fails.” You maybe don't put enough butter into the pan, and it sticks, it falls apart, or something like that. Or the pan isn't hot enough, or whatever the reason is, it's a mess. (It can still taste good, by the way, which is maybe a good metaphor for our conclusion later.)
Small tangent: I rarely fail to make pancakes now because I'm making them so often having two young kids.
Anyway, I'm the first pancake, as in, I'm the oldest of my siblings. Being the first child of my parents definitely has given me some trauma-slash-circumstances that were difficult, which caused me to have some quirks.
One such, relatively lighthearted, quirk/story: when my brother was, I think, two or something and I was four, he called me “hebheb,” which translates to “havehave” in English. Havehave because I, as a four-year-old, constantly said, “I want to have, I want to have.” Cause I was, of course, used to getting lots of stuff as an only child (for the 1st two years anyway).
So there’s a bunch of trouble you get as the first child, as in, your parents may have anxiety while raising their first kid and that stays with you until you're like well into your teens or even older. Because every time you get to the next “level” or age as a kid, you go to new places and do new things. And every time, you have to, as a parent, speaking from experience, let go of the past idea you have of your child.
And every time, you have to, as a parent, let go of the past idea you have of your child.
So every time is the first time. It's the first time your kid is going to school on their bike, the first time they'll be going out into the city, the first time they'll go with friends on vacation. Thus all the anxieties are mostly placed on the first kid.
And then, of course, there are different quirks and stuff that you get as a second, third, or whatever nth-child, but I think the anxiety-related ones are mostly for the first child.
There's something that I call anti-trauma. As a parent, you're maybe afraid of treating your kid in the same bad way as your parents did with you. And as you don't want to do that with your kids, you're overcompensating. But through that, create other problems which cause your kids to have trauma. So it's like an anti-trauma, trauma.
Anyway, there are other things you do for the first time, other “first pancakes” that are less than ideal. Maybe like building your first house or writing your first book or your first job, or your first romantic relationship.
You fuck up all the time. You just don't know everything.
You fuck up all the time. And, like, that comes with the territory every time you do something for the first time. You just don't know everything.
But you can't get to like number 10 of things without that first time, so it's just better to accept and enjoy yourself with that first thing. Like, don't be too hard on yourself. Even if it's not ideal, it's still like this first novel moment or child or a thing or whatever that has a special place in your heart, I guess.
So yeah, I think that's the message I want to give. Even if you are afraid to fuck up like this first-time thing, you can only do it better next, and you learn from it.
Yeah, I think that's it today. See ya!
Jibran