I believe it makes a huge difference if you’re being called a ‘stupid cow’ or a ‘genius’ on a daily basis. How can you not believe these words if you hear them over and over again. It becomes a part of you, literally marks your personality. Knowing this, I made a conscious choice to speak to my baby in positive phrases only, from birth on. I thought I was doing rather well…Only, I had forgotten one little detail. As it seems my method was not fool proof, there was a loop hole I had not thought of. Nor did I see it, until it was pointed out to me. What I had completely overlooked, was one very crucial point: I lead by example. And there I wasn’t doing too well. Whenever I was making a sandwich and took the butter out of the fridge, but forgot the cheese, getting dressed and came downstairs realising I didn’t put on my shoes, sitting in my car and noticed my sunglasses weren’t in my bag, I would call myself ‘goose’. I said this over a zillion times a day. I said it so often, I didn’t notice it anymore. It had become a bad habit. A potentially dangerous habit, that is. Had I not caught it early on, it would have raised my daughter instead of me. It would have taught my daughter it is ok to belittle yourself, despite al my efforts. And that is not ok with me. Ever since, I’m on a goose chase. Every moment of the day, I try to lovingly eliminate geese from my vocabulary.