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Big Dreams for Toddlers: A Story About Imagination and Believing in Yourself

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Jan Jay

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“Well,’ my mother says the next day as I arrive by her bedside with a fresh pot of tea. ‘What should we do?’ I look at her, puzzled. ‘Do?’ Until now, I thought we’d spend our time together doing very little, or nothing at all, and that I’d be miserable, although I’d hide it and deny it. I imagined, in other words, that we’d see one another, as we always have, across a divide. ‘The rain seems to be holding off for now,’ my mother continues, glancing out of her window. ‘Perhaps we could take a walk in the garden?’ ‘You think you can walk?’ ‘No. But there’s a wheelchair on the back porch. Do you feel fit enough to push me around?’ ‘Well,’ I say, brightly. ‘That would certainly make a nice change.’ My mother snaps her head around and glowers at me. Confused, I replay the final lines of conversation in my head, then panic. ‘No, no,’ I say, backtracking. ‘I meant a nice change from being holed up in the bedroom.’ My mother continues to regard me with her penetrating stare. ‘Of course, you did,’ she says, drily.”

MotherFamilySonParentingFamily Drama
Book:A Matter of Life and Death
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“I’m not surprised to find Dad and I tiptoeing around the edge of conversation. After all, we’ve never spent a great deal of time discussing affairs of the heart. I had classmates at school who had startlingly candid exchanges with their fathers, frequently settling down on their living room sofa to confer on relationships, sex, drugs and mental health. The nearest my own father ever came to opening up about relationships came a few weeks before my twelfth birthday, when I awoke to find a copy of ‘The Joy of Sex’ by my bedside. Inside, Dad had written Any questions, just ask! in a jaunty script, but I think we both sensed that at least one of us would die of embarrassment if we were ever to have the conversation, so I never followed up on the offer and, mercifully, neither did Dad.”

FamilyParentsParenthoodFatherhoodParents And ChildrenFather And Son
Book:A Matter of Life and Death
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