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Confessions of a praised woman

20.2.2017

Translation: machine translated

"Thou shalt not praise", parenting experts have recently instructed us - adding yet another directive to the impressive catalogue of commandments for parents. Is that necessary?

Congratulations! You have an excellent text in front of you. Someone has come up with sentences that work. Someone who can write is writing here, seriously now. At least that's what my father would assure anyone who asked him, he would give them a serious look and add: "And I'm not saying that because I'm their father." Cute, isn't it?

My father is the first person to share my articles on Facebook. He's read pretty much everything I've ever put on paper, whether it's about women's rights in Turkey or a broken garage door in Hittnau. Of course, his judgement of my texts varies, but so far he hasn't found any of them worse than great. I find that touching. I realise that, despite all the appreciation for my work, the high, not always entirely objective praise expresses above all fatherly love and pride. Above all, however, it has never led me to overestimate my abilities. I read enough articles by colleagues to know that there are plenty of journalists who write more pointedly, heartbreakingly, cleverly and amusingly than I do, and forI probably won't win the Henri Nannen Prize this year for my interview with the vice president of the Association for Paediatric Dentistry on how best to brush the teeth of unruly toddlers.

That's why I trust my sons to be able to correctly categorise my enthusiasm for their neocolour artwork one day. However, parenting guides are currently warning us everywhere that we should only praise our offspring with caution. Otherwise they will soon lack frustration tolerance, otherwise the pressure on them will increase immeasurably, otherwise they will soon become weak and dependent. But I actually think it's great when my big boy builds blue monsters out of Lego and then calls them "The Sea", and I'm genuinely impressed when the little one suddenly wins at the memory game. And when the two of them proudly show me their home-made buns and they look like genitals, I won't tell them that biscuits don't normally have the shape of penises. Because it's a wonder how these children have learnt to talk and walk and draw and dance and argue and joke, how they struggle over and over again with new things, tugging at their socks, writing letters, climbing stairs, and suddenly it all comes very easily to them.

And parents should also be given a little more credit - common sense, for example. Most of us know that other children take the same developmental steps as our own and don't assume that their daughter will one day take over the world just because she has just stacked seven blocks into a tower. But it still remains a miracle.

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Ümit Yoker

uemityoker@gmx.net

A passionate journalist and mother of two sons who moved from Zurich to Lisbon with her husband in 2014. Does her writing in cafés and appreciates that life has been treating her well in general. <br><a href="http://uemityoker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">uemityoker.wordpress.com</a>

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Confessions of a praised woman

Last column from Ümit

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