One-Size Fits All

What’s your shoe size? What is the size of your shirt or a trouser? What is your bangle size or even the size of your ring? When it comes to ring, each finger has a different size and sometimes our right hand has one size and left has another. Each item from small to big on our body has varied size which is different from another individual. Every individual is so unique that when we buy something which is free size that means it won’t be a perfect fit, but we can manage or adjust with how it is. Can you think of applying a similar logic to relationships? The question might seem irrelevant but let me share my perspective which will make you think about the similarities which we infuse into our relationship.

We group every relationship like a category and assume one size fits all. For example: Parenting. Generally when you speak as a parent to another parent, we believe our problems are similar and so suggest ways of dealing with them to each other: my kid is a very picky eater, so is mine and then starts the conversation and sharing ideas leading to mutual help; my kid struggles with math, so does mine; my kid never sleeps at night and the list goes on. Similar experience is encountered with siblings, spouses, in-laws. We generalize the relationship; the problem associated with it and the solution which is needed to resolve it with the assumption “one-size files all”.

Recently one of the podcast intrigued my interest when the person mentioned: “siblings don’t grow up in the same house”. The explanation was so realistic, it made me think the very thought we generally get, “how come kids growing up in the same house are so different” became clear. Parenting is circumstantial. The child born to a couple has its unique qualities which sometimes define your parenting style. As adults, we behaves in a particular way with a child based on our physical, emotional, financial and social environment which at that point in time dictates our thought process. We usually tend to say if I was in your situation, I would have behaved differently. But like they say to step into someone else’s shoe you have to first remove you own shoe which is the most difficult part of stepping in.

When a woman becomes a mother at 25years to her first born and delivers her second child when she is 30, she is two different personalities. She has grown over the years with her experience of life, motherhood, work, financial growth, independence, maturity, all has made her a person which she was not at 25 when she had her first child. So, when the person delivering the baby is entirely different at the second time, how can the same parenting style exist within her and we believe that one-size fits all?

The newborn entering her life itself is unique and different from the first one which makes all the experience unique, and we rarely relive the past with the newborn. The same logic is applicable to father too. More so the spouse themselves are at a different phase of their marriage. First child may be a result of their honeymoon phase which could be different at the time of second. The family which became 3 from 2 is now becoming 4 from 3 and that adds additional responsibility along with change in your physical and mental state.

I am one among 3 daughters-in-law to my mother-in-law and her equation with all 3 of us is unique which can never be understood by anyone else other than her. We can speculate maybe it is because of our own behavior with her but it could also be because of her relationship with her sons which is different with each one. In this case too one-size never fits all, not just with the daughters-in-law but even with the sons.

I went to a lot of schools due to my father’s posting which made us shift places every couple of years. As an adult I do visit some of my schools and was fortunate to meet some of my teachers who taught me in my primary, middle and high school. When I met them after so many years, it was not easy to recognize each other but the connection with some was instant. My first-grade teacher could still see that little girl in me when she saw me with my 5year old daughter. When we get promoted to higher grades, our teachers don’t accompany us physically but emotionally we still are connected with the same chord. My daughter’s story is completely different from mine. She has been in the same school for 9 years now and her teachers see her everyday growing from that tiny little girl to someone becoming a teenager and slowly transforming to young adult. When you see someone grow day-in day-out, we miss the impact of that growth because our mind doesn’t consider it to be tangible. This is what happens to parents. They see their kids grow but forget to register the change in their mind and try to continue with that one-size parenting which they believe fits all – infant, toddler, kid, teenager, adult and sometime even during your mid-life.

The change we see in our kids is mainly a tick mark in the check box which is created by the society: school- check, college-check, job-check, marriage-check, kids-check. But bottom line remains the same – I am the parent and no matter the age, my kid is just what I have in my memory- a kid.

We often tend to forget that we need to grow in our relationship if we need to fit comfortably. If we believe one-size fits all, then it was never meant to be mine. The personal touch we all crave in everything in life will always be missing in our most important aspect of our being – our lifeline, our relationship.

Can your friend instruct you on how you should behave with your spouse based on their experience? Sounds irrelevant and may not be logical too. Can my friend tell me how to talk to my sister based on the story I shared with her when I have differences? May be, but I will always add my essence into that conversation because only I know what I mean to my sister and what she means to me. Over the years, we grow in all our relationships. Once upon a time we might have discussed a math problem with each other but today we may not even remember how we solved it. If we try to use that good old logic to relive the relationship which has grown over the years and try to keep it alive with only memories of the past, we will lose the depth we are meant to maintain with that bond.

Similar logic is applicable with parents too. Kids become adults and adults become older, but do we want to see the change or do we want to hold on to the control we once had? Letting go off control doesn’t mean losing the relationship. It means we are creating room for growth and building the bond which is changing every single day.

We all need the personal touch in our lives that starts with materialistic comfort because it is tangible, but it always spreads to relationships which is only felt. When we see an apartment building, it all looks the same from outside just like the label we put on every relationship. Once you step inside the apartment, every individual house says its own story which is unique to the people who stay there. One-size never fits all.

In a class of 20 students, we were once given a task to demonstrate one-way communication. We were asked to close our eyes, given a piece of paper and then instructed step by step to fold and cut. At the end of the activity, every single piece of paper was different even though we all heard the same instruction. That is the beauty of human brain. Every individual has its unique way of perceiving life, and this blog is just an attempt to change your perspective and personalize your relationship to custom fit rather than that one-size which is only advertised to fit all. Every fitting needs a little bit of touch up if you want to make it yours own. Relationships always deserve a little more than a small touch up. They are demanding but at the end they are always worth it because that is what defines who you are.

Let’s learn to customize our relationship and grow with time to fit into the space we create. The more we lean towards one-size fits all perception, we tend to lose the personal touch we once showered into the same relationship which we wanted to build. As we grow in the relationship, size varies and the strength deepens when we accept that we are outgrowing the size which ones did fit the same relationship and now needs a new outfit to maintain the beauty which that relationship upholds. The most common comment we listen in any relationship is “you have changed”. When we learn life is a journey of change and we are changing in this together, relationships evolve into that new customized outfit which makes you own the strongest bond built together through understanding, respect, communication and that personal touch which says one-size doesn’t fit all.