Hello everyone,

It’s Friday! I’m particularly pleased about that fact because I’ve had a hectic week and I’m looking forward to the weekend like crazy.

I would like to share a hilarious experience about my  7 year old daughter and I .

A few weeks ago, she walked downstairs, having stayed upstairs quietly for a long time, and the first thing I noticed was the large gash in her jeans trousers.

“What happened to your new jeans?” I asked, completely confused that it was already torn.

“Nothing,” she replied with a cheeky smile.

“What do you mean nothing? It’s torn.” I was still flabbergasted.

“Oh, you mean this?” She pointed to the large gap at the knee area of one leg of her trousers and her smile widened. “I cut it with scissors to make ripped jeans.”

I was utterly speechless. The off-hand way she made the statement was completely unbelievable .

A 7 Year old, cutting off her jeans for fashion? What? Shocking!

As I felt slow rage well up inside me and myself about to lash out, a memory resurfaced, which cooled my annoyance immediately.

I was only 13 years old when I cut off my new shirt to make a crop top so that I could look like Toni Braxton from a music video. I was such a huge fan of hers that I wanted to emulate her fashion sense. My mother had been so angry with me that she punished me severely. I’ll keep the details of that to myself. But let’s just say, I cried for hours.

This got me thinking about the way we respond to our children or the younger generation. It’s easy to forget our own past experiments, delinquencies and mistakes, and judge them or punish them for simply doing what we did—grow up.

I took a different approach from my mother and decided to find out why she did it.

What are your thoughts about this?

Have you found yourself judging or reprimanding a younger person for doing exactly what you did when you were that age?

Do you have another approach?

Does telling them off for experimenting prevent them from making mistakes or does it just highlight our own hypocrisy?