Linus and His Blanket: A rant about our parent’s control over comfort items.

Our mother was the kind of mother who wanted us to be independent. Not a bad thing. 

Though they way she went about it was. Bad.

Probably her way of us not being co-dependent was complete independency, without acknowledgment that interdependency exists. (even shamed us when we had co-dependent traits (because of trauma), when it wouldn’t be our fault that we had these traits).

In Charlie Brown, there is this character named Linus. 

He is known for carrying a blue blanket with him everywhere he goes.

Our mother didn’t want us to be Linus.

She did not want a grown-ass adult to be carrying around a blanket like a little kid.

That is not… professional (professional people can take care of their own, they don’t need external means of comfort, or at least, have the courtesy to not show it in public). That could… put us in danger (people taking offense to it). That could leave us… single forever (who would want to date us if we carry around a blanket in public?). 

Think that she even told us that she doesn’t want us to think that a character like Linus is an okay thing to be. (We are very impressionable, and could be easily misguided into making the wrong choices and go down the wrong path… NOT)

To her, behaving and acting like Linus was a bad thing. It shows that you are either weak/don’t get enough love from your parents/ or some other toxic idea/concept. 

I think, personally, that it is a sign of strength.

Linus, knows that he needs some extra sources of comfort for his own reasons, and is unafraid of using it in public. 

I also don’t think that character’s have been overly cruel to him for his blanket unless they were written as a bully character. Though I could be mistaken. (This is only my own thoughts and observations, mainly from memory or what is given to be at the moment).

I could say more good things about Linus, though I will settle on myself being envious. 

Envious because we have too much toxic mindset and conditioning that carrying around a blanket seems inappropriate. 

(I mean we do have stuffed animals, and use them as comfort items, even around people, but only people that we are comfortable with–> select audience).

I am also envious in a different way.

Maybe if I was Linus, I would one day may no longer need the blue blanket. Or only in select contexts.

But that would be based on my own comfort levels and what I feel is best for me.

I don’t think that our mother (or father, if mother asked him to back her up) would agree with that previous statement.

In her eyes: Linus would never give up his blue blanket–and realize that he is happier that he doesn’t need it–unless, someone was there to take the blanket away from him/have him “seek reason” and know that he doesn’t need the blanket.

Our mother would take away comfort items because she didn’t think or believed that we could never be the one to part with them on our own/force us to part with them unwillingly. 

“My child can’t part with their toys… therefore, I should take them from them, so that they find other ways of comfort without them.”

I don’t know if I am explaining it right. 

I wish we had the mother who didn’t care if we needed external means of comfort and would wait until and only until we felt comfortable to do something about our need for comfort items. 

A mother who would care less about self-presentation and more about the emotional (beyond basic human needs) needs of her child. And who would allow her child to prosper on their own terms rather than be forced to be more mature just because their body is of a certain age. 

I wish she had more of a healthy mindset about self-care in atypical ways. Even if that means being a grown-ass adult who still has their own version of Linus’ blue blanket. 

I wish she cared more about us, rather than the us she wanted us to be. 

(Similar ideas about finding people as sources of comfort. “You are old enough to go by yourself” rather than “I am mature enough to not need you. I want your company, but I don’t need it”) (different versions of this exist, as well, though this is mainly based off what I would have wanted rather than what was told to me).