Honey, There's a Lego in My Martini. Good grief. And I thought my parents were permissive. Usually my sister and I confined our messes to our rooms. As for my peers, their houses were also mess-free whenever I came over to visit.
I was never good at art. It's not that I realize this on hindsight, but that I always knew. Maybe I'm a perfectionist or maybe I have better taste, but I had always been dissatisfied with any sort of visual art I had managed to create despite all the fulsome praise. When I was in first grade, one of our art assignments was to draw a picture of what we wanted to do when we grew up. And when all the pictures were hung up on the hall for the world to see, I realized I had no hope of ever becoming an artist. My only consolation was that I didn't draw myself as being an artist.
I don't recall having my parents hang up any of my art creations. Instead of handing my art to Mom and Dad when I got home and being excited what I did that day, I hid it in my own room--very similar to what other kids did with their report cards if they got bad grades. I was probably too embarrassed to inflict my less than mediocre painting efforts on them on top of my daily piano practicing. The only thing that they've displayed (and still display) is a Japanese tea set that I made during sixth grade. It turned out pretty well considering I had the help of molds.
The real artist in the family is my sister. Her paintings are framed and hung on the wall for all to see. This is not because my parents favor her creative effort over my own. She's actually good. Her art has managed to win some awards and now she's actually studying to get a degree in fine arts. My parents say, half-jokingly, half-seriously, that when she becomes famous, the basement filled with her earlier work will be worth millions.
Although my parents weren't so permissive as to let their children take over their house with our projects and playthings, they did let us explore whatever we found interesting. That was liberating, because we discovered that our pursuits never overlapped very much. And that prevented a lot of angst and sibling rivalry that peppered the relationships of other children.
