Generally I try to be positive with the Friday Five. And it's not that I'm being negative exactly, but this is a short list of things that well-meaning people say that I would rather they wouldn't.
- 'It'll be different when they're your own' - no it won't, because I'm not having any, for any one of the 16,893 reasons that I've previously mentioned.
- 'Smile, it might never happen' - it probably already has; hence the reason for the glum expression. This is actually an extremely insensitive thing to say.
- 'You can achieve anything if you put your mind to it' - although I appreciate the sentiment behind this one, it's simply not true. Some achievements require money, circumstance, luck, natural talent and a number of other things that just may not line up. To promise a child (or even an adult) they can have anything through sheer will is cruel and misleading.
- 'It won't happen again' - you don't know that. You might try not to do it again, but there are no guarantees.
- 'It's more scared of you than you are of it' - I doubt that; it hasn't got boots but if it did, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be quaking in them.
