What is my motive for this project and journey?
My daughter aged 9.
Why am I so passionate about it?
There seems to be a real alignment of what I have come to this point in my project.
A sense of the lack of mentorship growing up as a child.
Being a single a parent – wanting to get everything right.
Fear of being judged as being a bad parent.
The strong bond that I wanted to create between my daughter and I.
As a Father I would like to think that I have not made many mistakes, I’m aware however that I have probably made countless without even realising it.
Phillip Larkin’s words have always stuck with me:
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.”
As I’ve stated a happy family is not a perfect family.
A parents job is to guide, mentor and to keep safe. We are there to provide structure and to be that moral compass. The truth is, we cannot get it right all of the time. Doing some research the other night I was reminded that during my the break up from my ex partner with whom I had a child with, I wanted my daughter to feel that this would not damage our relationship at all. I would continue to be in her life. In some ways we had to make more connections through books, music, shows and whatever we could find to keep us close.
My daughter Immer, was 3 at the time and at that point I had started to read more with her, rather than the normal baby books with images, colours etc. She was starting to understand more complex narratives and books were certainly something that we could share together.
From an early age Immer, was very fond of the Jacqueline Wilson books. Some of these books were sometimes very distressing and provocative but also very informative and entertaining.
What I loved about these books, was the honest approach to very difficult subjects. From “The Suitcase kid”, which deals with divorce, to “The illustrated mum”, which deals with depression and drinking and don’t even get me started on “Hetty feather”. (The stage show – which I’ve seen twice, had me in tears both times. It seemed to me at the time that we were not the only family that were having heavy issues with the heart and I took some solace in the fact that I was not facing it all alone. These books helped me so much as a parent and gave me guidance that I may not have got from anywhere else. They were such an influence that we decided to create our very own Jacqueline Wilson inspired covers. (Seen in the image above)
My motive for this project is to make a difference to even one parent’s life. To empower and enable them to help make the right decisions when it comes to discussing mental health issues with their children.
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