23/05/2026
"Childhood teaches us that bigness is precarious. The big person can protect or intimidate, soothe or silence. The child feels this in their body long before they have words for what they are feeling, and the traces persist throughout life. But adulthood offers the possibility of redefining what bigness means. Now, bigness may become less about the capacity to give shape to another person’s world and more the capacity to inhabit one’s own.
This new form of bigness rests on the recognition that maturity has little to do with dominance. It’s about the ability to hold one’s own needs, hurts and vulnerabilities without displacing them onto someone smaller, weaker or dependent. It entails relating to other people without insisting that they carry the ghosts of your own childhood, allowing dependency without feeling threatened by it, and providing care without insisting upon gratitude or submission in return."
Nobody quite recovers from being a child: the asymmetry of power between parents and children always leaves a trace
