Exactly. Now I always say to myself: once you give something away as a present it is no longer yours, and you no longer have any claim to it. My mother treated her presents like loans and always has done: a doll she bought me could be taken away from me or even smashed in front of my eyes for any reason. And if she gave me money to choose myself a toy, god help me if I chose a toy she did not approve of.

Remember Beanie Babies? One time, me and her friend and her friend's daughter were going to the toy shop to choose one (not the friend of course but you know what I mean.) I had been given a fiver and I was so excited to add a second one to my collection. I liked the cats best, so I chose a siamese cat to go with the grey tabby. When I got home and showed my mother my new toy excitedly (I think I was 9) my mother's face blackened and she went completely ballistic, screaming at me that I had wasted her money on another cat. I hid in my grandmother's spare room and cried as she would not stop raging. Her friend had also bought me a doll in a charity shop for a pound or two, and that also enraged my mother as well for some reason. The shrieking did not stop for ages. And I simply could not understand why my mother was screaming at me for giving me money to choose a toy that was simply not different enough to the one I already had for her standards.

And years later, many many many years later, I had taken my godson to the museum for a treat. We of course ended up in one of the gift stores (museums are so fucking cunning, they place one of them at every conceivable place, so you can never sneak a child past one.) And I told him to choose a toy. He chose some rather junky and overpriced tubs of plastic dinosaurs over the many many more exciting toys there were. I tried to convince him to get something a bit more special (even if it cost a bit more), but I aws like, fuck it, you know what? That's what he wants, and that is what he shall have. What does my personal taste over what makes a good toy have to do with it? Sure I could probably find something similar in the pound shop for significantly less, but at least the money is going into this fantastic museum. So I bought his tub of dinosaurs, then we went into the picnic area so we could have a snack and he could play with them. It feels so good and soothing to be aware of the unacceptable ways I was treated as a child, and conciously be able to reject them.