I'm 29 and I shy away from making decisions (things as little as picking out my own frames freak me out.)
Recently I was tasked with bringing a cake for a little princesses 3 year old birthday party. I asked her mom what kind of design she wanted and typically, her mom said pick anything, just make it look pretty but then I sent her back to find out what our princess wanted. She came back with a verdict of Elsa (yay Frozen) and then I said lets give her some options and have her pick out what she likes best, and at that point I bet my girlfriend was irritated by me but she just wanted to humor me and said whatever.
We found a few Elsa cakes and showed it to our little princess and she picked the perfect most beautiful out of all 4 (IMO), anyways her mom wasn't convinced that she knew what she wanted, so she jumbled them up and asked her to choose again and she picked the exact same cake, clearly showing that she knew what she wanted.
This encounter made me realize that growing up, I really didn't make my own decisions. Things just got picked out for me (hairstyles, party themes, outfits you name it even as old as 16, my mom picked out my high school graduation hairstyle and outfit) and that resulted in my first sentence above.
I know I am not a unicorn here, this was pretty much the norm growing up in a Nigerian home. Not making decisions for myself when I was younger created a grown up that didn't really trust her own decisions. I would always ask for another persons opinion because I wasn't really sure if I actually knew what I wanted. Even now sometimes I would default to my husband to pick my hairstyles because I just couldn't decide for myself.
Personally, I let me kids pick out whatever they want to wear, choose their hairstyles, choose what sports to play in the school year, birthday themes, you name it. My motto is, as long as you are not putting yourself or anyone else in danger and its about you, then its your right to make these decisions for yourself.
Oftentimes, we as parents tend to ignore our little ones choices or opinions because we deem them insignificant or we say they don't know what they want, but I have come to find out that if we really give them a chance, they have their own opinions, likes and dislikes from as little as when they are babies.
The road to finding ourselves is in knowing our likes and dislikes and ultimately I think letting our children make these decisions for themselves would make the journey of self discovery a whole lot easier.
Let me know what you think. Did your parents let you make decisions? Do you let your kids make their own decisions? Where do you draw the line with your kids making decisions?
