Relationship Reflection

Relationships are important to me because as humans, I believe we thrive on relationships which helps us to navigate through our daily activities. I develop varying types and levels of relationships with people I come across and those who are constant in my life depending on what we have in common and the experiences we share.

My Parents
I am the last child of my parents and so I developed two completely different types of relationships with my parents. With my mum, I always wanted to be around her and so we bonded over the things I enjoyed doing with her. She taught me how to cook and sew and I genuinely wanted to learn from her. As I grew older, she developed trust in my abilities to handle any of the tasks she assigned to me. This absolutely increased my confidence and made me feel respected and appreciated. Presently our relationship is on a different level because I have my own family now and we talk about and bond over other things relating to parenting. She is always ready to give me tips and I enjoy putting to use some of her old school methods that still work, which I find fascinating. On the other hand, my father and I had a unique relationship which I could base on the fact that he is also the last child of his parents. From a young age he was very protective of me and he always took my side whenever I got into trouble with my siblings regardless of what I did wrong. He has always been supportive of me and my decisions which I can say helped me to become mature quite early. When I was younger, he would always ask for me to cut his hair because according to him, I did the best job and even though this was a trivial task, it gladdened my heart to do it and I always did it with pride.

My Siblings
I have 5 siblings and I developed different types of relationships with each of them but the one constant thing is that we genuinely love each other and are our support systems. I remember when we would all make up stories to cover up for one of us when things got tense with our parents and this thought me from young age what loyalty and mutual respect really is. Even though one of my sisters and I do not live in the same state as the rest of my family, those around visit and support each other in whatever they have going on. This has made family reunion very memorable, enjoyable and also a way to show our children how important family is.

The major challenge I face now in maintaining these relationships is distance. Regardless of how long I spend on the phone with them, it can never equate to being physically present. Currently I live in a different country and it hurts to miss so many family events and opportunities to bond with my family and for them to have missed some of the high points in my life in the past few years.

My experience thus far with my relationships has thought me how necessary it is to live in the moment with people that are important to you. As I advance in the field of early childhood education, I would encourage familial relationships because I have learned that they are truly the only constant  and very dependable relationships.