A child who can't, is a child who can.

Both of my daughters took an overwhelmingly longer time than other children to get into the car when I went to pick them up.

I wondered why everyone else got into their cars so easily.
No matter what I said to them, my daughters would find something that interested them and start playing.

Sometimes other children would be lured into playing with my daughters,
but it was shocking to see that most of them would simply say "Okay" and stop playing to go home as soon as their mothers called out, "Time to go home."

I wondered why the other children followed adult instructions so well... I was very envious at the time, and eventually, I even felt a sense of emptiness when it was just me and my daughter left in the playground.

I assumed everyone else must be good at calling out to their children and raising them, which is why they got into their cars so obediently. I thought I must be a bad parent because I couldn't do that.

Since there were many things they couldn't do compared to those around them, it made me sad to focus on the things that other children could do but my own children couldn't.

Was it my fault as a parent that they couldn't walk straight on the way home, or was it the children's fault?

Either way, it was painful, as if I were the only one who couldn't get things right.

**

Even after my second child was born, it was the same.
Neither of them would ever obediently walk straight on the way home.

I wondered if I was spoiling them too much.
I also wondered if they would be able to do it if I were stricter with them.

When I was working, I knew housework was piling up at home, so I wanted to get back quickly, and that was exactly why I envied children who would walk straight home.

But in reality, I actually liked seeing my children find joy in such trivial things.

That's why I didn't really want to stop them strictly.

My children always took winding detours on the way home.

***

The other day, my youngest child graduated from preschool.

She did not attend the graduation ceremony.
She herself said she didn't want to go and strongly refused.

She never participated in the ceremony rehearsals either.
She barely even went to preschool in March.

The days she could go were decided to be days without rehearsals, or if there was a rehearsal, only after it had finished.

My daughter firmly rejected anything related to the ceremony.

Every time something like this happens

"Why is it only my child?" crosses my mind.

The first year my oldest child hated sports day.
While soothing my daughter who was clinging to me and unable to move, I stared blankly at the other children who were participating in the events as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Why is it only my child?"

On a morning when I was at a loss because she told me no matter how much I persuaded her that she wouldn't go to school.
I stared blankly at the children who could put on their backpacks and head to school on their own two feet.

"Why is it only my child?"

Since my younger child always went to kindergarten happily, I thought this child would be able to go to school too, but at the very last moment, she suddenly couldn't go.

While other children would naturally enter the kindergarten entrance with a smile, my daughter would crouch down by the side of the entrance door and refuse to go inside.

Day by day, that distance grew, until she wouldn't get out of the car, and then she wouldn't leave the house.

"Why is it only my child?"

I wondered why my child had been unable to do things that the children around her could do naturally for so long.

Every time I felt that, it was painful.
"Normal"I was afraid of falling out of the.

Thinking about it now, I honestly don't really know what I was afraid of.
"Normal"Even though living according to the does not necessarily mean you will live a happy life, for some reason people tend to want to belong to the "normal".

****

When I asked her what she hated about the graduation ceremony

She said, "I hate talking into the microphone in front of everyone."

I remembered that I also announced my future dream at my elementary school graduation ceremony.

There was a microphone on the side where you received your diploma, and you had to say a few words before getting off the stage.

That's right.
Back then, I hated that too, more than anything.

But everyone was doing it as a "matter of course", and there wasn't a single person who rejected it by saying they hated it. I couldn't possibly say I didn't want to do it.

Ever since I was little, I was afraid of straying from what was "normal".

Even now, I remember the terror I felt when I stood in front of the microphone after receiving my certificate. I remember how much I hated the sound of my own voice echoing through the large gymnasium through the microphone.

Thinking back, I wonder what the point of that was.
Was it some kind of vow for the future?

By the way, I also remember saying
"I want to work in a job where I can draw"
that day.

It came true. It makes me laugh.

They say that if you speak your dreams aloud, they will come true, but I wonder if all my classmates who talked about their dreams on that stage that day have seen those dreams come true.

If so, then maybe there is some value in doing that while harboring such fear.

By the way, my husband graduated from the same elementary school, but he doesn't seem to remember what he said on stage. I suppose that's how it usually goes.

I only remember because drawing was about the only thing I could do, and my dream had always been to draw, without any change.

That dream was also crushed by the voices of adults saying, "Only a handful of people can make a living from drawing," so at first, I chose a different, more stable career.
But considering that I ended up being part of that handful, I also think people shouldn't be so irresponsible when commenting on others' dreams.

I couldn't say I hated the things I hated more than anything.

No, that's not right.
When I was entering junior high school, I cried and resisted because I didn't want to wear a skirt for my uniform, but the uniform prepared for me was a skirt. Back then, it was useless to resist.

I don't remember, but I might have resisted speaking on stage at least a little bit.

Everything was forced upon me with just the words, "Because everyone else is doing it."
That's how, before I knew it, I gave up on rebelling.

Maybe that's why I also stopped chasing my dream of wanting to draw.

As an adult, I took a stable job that would make my parents happy.

But while raising my child and working, I ran out of energy and burned out... and I let go of that stable job.

What remained for my exhausted self was drawing, the only thing I had when I was a child.

And now, I work as an artist.

In the end, I am doing what I wanted to do that day.

*****

What about my daughters?

With all their might, they refused to do what they didn't want to do.
Both my older one and my younger one.

I wondered if that was really a bad thing.
I wondered if there was any need to feel sad or miserable about it.

Being able to say you don't want to do something you don't want to do.
Wasn't that something incredibly important?

My daughters walked in a winding path where everyone else walked straight.

My daughters didn't want to walk straight.

Being able to do what you want to do, while feeling like you want to do it.
Wasn't that also something incredibly important?

Reaching out to each of the many things that caught their attention along the path they strayed from was, in fact, a very free and rich thing to do, wasn't it?

My daughters, who clearly refused to do what they didn't want to do, have lived their lives since they were small by simply and honestly following their own desires.

I've started to feel that being able to do that is actually quite amazing.

Thinking back to my own childhood, where I was forced and had my requests suppressed, I didn't want to use my power as an adult to force them to do things they didn't want to do.

I was afraid of falling outside the definition of a "normal parent".

Now, past the day of the graduation ceremony, I feel somewhat relieved.
Finally, I was able to think that this is surely okay.

Adults don't always have the right answer.

It is better for the person themselves to choose their own path.

When I thought that, I wanted to tell my past self, who felt so miserable that day because my daughter couldn't walk straight to the car.

So, I typed this text into X on an impulse and posted it.

Long posts on X don't usually get much traction, but this one had a relatively good response.
Other mothers who feel the same way shared it in quotes.
"My child doesn't walk straight either," they said. "But I feel like this text saved me."

Hoping it would reach more mothers who feel the same way I do, I turned the text into a manga just as it was.

Even though I felt there was something slightly off about this text, I posted it anyway.

There was someone who immediately reacted to the part I thought might be problematic.

"My child was one who would hold my hand while walking, but that doesn't mean they weren't interested in the things around them. I don't really like how this manga portrays it."

…You're right.

I did have a sense of unease that, as written, this text might be interpreted as if children who can hold hands while walking are somehow less enriched.

I realized clearly that things which don't feel off in text can become very apparent when turned into manga. That kind of reaction didn't happen with the text alone.

Since that reaction came just minutes after posting, I realized this was indeed a poor way to express it and deleted the post. I think the benefit of social media posting is being able to reflect such reactions in your work.

I will refine the sentence to convey the message, 'Please don't take the struggle of raising a child who wanders off without holding hands too hard,' without negating children who can hold hands.

I hope that parents of any child won't feel negated, and that the message reaches those who are feeling sad with kindness.

I'm also talking about this on Voicy.