A few years ago, I was doing a watercolor painting. It was a painting of a pink cockatoo and it inspired me. I don’t know why. I had an idea come to me. I had the desire to be a writer and I will start with a childrens book. Being a mom it came natural. We need to start young the discussion of self worth and self esteem.
I have noticed that there is a huge problem with young ones, and older ones as well,that we compare ourselves to others. I am sure I did it as well. We watch those on social media and famous people showing us all that they have and it makes us feel bad about ourselves. They present, either intentional or unintentional, a false narrative about how wonderful their life is and how we should strive to be just like them. I find it nonsense but I wanted to help show that a person should always be their own true unique self and not emulate others.
I have always struggled with self esteem. I will often wish to be someone else…anyone else, as long as it isn’t me. The thing is…we should be unique. No one person is exactly the same, even twins will have some differences in personality or character trait. So why compare ourselves to others? Because we face bullies every day, mocking uniqueness, demanding sameness and banality. And it is to our detriment as humans. The stress to fit in can be overwhelming and anxiety inducing. To achieve sameness is a worthless pursuit, chasing after the wind. We should not be exact copies of each other. We don’t always value uniqueness though.
The picture of the pink cockatoo had me thinking about the animal kingdom. It would be silly if one animal compared themselves to another animal. They don’t have that capacity to think that abstractly. A pink cockatoo wouldn’t think about being like the lovebirds or toucan. The ridiculousness of comparing ourselves to others is what I wanted to present in my book. A bird would never compare themselves to other birds. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to others but value ourselves as individuals.
Please share if you may. If you are interested in purchasing my book follow the links below. Let’s build self-esteem in our children and ourselves. Thanks for all your support.
Hardcover:
https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?JWr8VW4396tRjuoldWSPt05DnKzHO6kcwyDPRmdSvds
Softcover: https://a.co/d/gcFXz0R
One response to “Why I wrote Penelope’s Quest”
I am so glad I got this book! It was amazing, with such positivity that you don’t see to much in the world. I cannot wait to read this again to my daughter when she’s old enough to really know what I am reading to her!