The bus smells like lunchboxes. There is a loud buzz of screams, talk and laughter reflecting the kids’ expectations. You’re sitting in the warm, soft bus seat, feet way above the floor, swinging front and back, and your nose is pressed against the window as you keep your eyes focused on mom and dad. They wave up until you’re no longer visible in the horizon.
You kiss them hi and goodbye.
The school entrance is busy in the morning with students crossing in and out. Dad drove you to school, but you made sure to tell him NOT to kiss or hug you when you got to the school. God that would be embarrassing if any of your friends saw you. It’s a taboo now. You prefer him just dropping you off outside without anything, might throw a small wave at him, but other than that you have to be cool. Independent. Grown up.
You go to parental meetings at the school, hoping and praying that your parents won’t say anything embarrassing or act stupidly.
You get your first boyfriend and tell your parents NOT to tell the story about how “cute” (meaning how many embarrassing things you did) you were as a baby.
You finish college and go on a voyage around the world, hug your parents and wave at them like crazy in the airport.
Growing up, there will be a lot of things that seem like a taboo for your parents to do in your eyes. There’s a very clear distinction between when it’s ok for them to kiss you hi and goodbye (low age), wave (still low age), not do anything at all (including not waving) and craziness NOT being appreciated (teenage), wave again and craziness being appreciated (older and mature age).
As you grow older, what was seemingly a tabooed action can, when looking back, be appreciated as fun, caring, lovely, nice or you name it. Also, physical actions get another meaning as you enter different stages of your life. That’s why you don’t keep kissing your parents hi and goodbye… But it is also because it becomes a taboo to be too addicted to your parents, or to be seen as a “little kid”, when all you want in that pre-teenage phase is to be older. As you do become older, you learn that you’re in no rush to be “grown up” and start appreciating these things.
Bottom line is that you change your perspective throughout life. As you grow on life-experiences, you grown on lenses to see the world through.
A now world-renowned dad one day got an idea to dress up to wave at his 15, now 16, year old son and the highschool bus. It evolved into a huge blog-project, where the dad, Dale Price, dresses up in a new costume – every day – and waves at his son. Now at first, his son thought it was dead embarrassing, but later he started to kind of appreciate his dad’s craziness. It reflects how taboos tend to change with the age. Dale Price probably hasn’t looked at the dressing-up-part in the same way his son did. Because as a teenager, parents standing out from the norm is the worst – but as a parent, it’s fun. When the teenager ages a bit, he or she might find it fun as well, because fitting in suddenly isn’t so important. Breaking up with taboos may be more important.
Would you be embarrassed, as a teenager in a sensible phase, if you left every morning to join your friends in the highschool bus, looking at this? And would you find it funny now?
tabooyah 