I want to share a thought on how perspective might be skewed/how we might need to open our minds and realize there are other explanations.
I have very few painful memories of my time with my maternal grandmother. I loved that lady. But one that I did have involved a trip to a nearby city when I was four with my grandmother, my mama, my aunt, and me in the car (my little sister may have been there, too--I don't remember). When we got to a village just outside the city, I saw a sign and I read it aloud (it's still there, last I checked!!!). I read "An-tee-kwes" (it said antiques). The adults in the car laughed and Grandmother told me the correct pronunciation. I have been humiliated every since, thinking they were laughing at my poor pronunciation.
When I was visiting four decades later, my aunt told me the story. But her memory didn't match mine. She remembered that they laughed because they were delighted that, at 4-years-old, I had tried to sound out the word.
They were proud of me and my early reading. I had imagined, for most of my life, something else. I didn't tell my aunt then, because I would have cried. But that meant everything to me. Two of my aunts taught me to read early with newspapers and anything else. And I caught on and made them proud.
So, don't assume. That's all I can tell you!
And now you know how my love affair with words began.
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