Parenting through handwriting and the power to "let it go"

I had horrible handwriting as a child.  I remember always being told to "write better" or "write clearer."  "Write it better, Shelly.  No one can read that."  It always hurt my self esteem to some degree.  I always thought I wasn't good enough to write anything important.  As much as I tried to write better, or slow down and take my time writing something out, I just couldn't.  As a child, being told you can't do something well enough, took a major toll on your self worth.  Those valuable moments in time where I couldn't even write my name without being told it looked bad.

Over time, as I got older, my handwriting improved enough to where no one would comment about it.....Much.  Now I see my bad handwriting in my son and I've caught myself wanting to correct it.  He writes his name as if he has tremors running through his arm.  His S looks like a broken road to nowhere.  He curves his letters slowly and takes his time, most of the time, but I wince as I watch him.  Well, I used to.......

In public schools they teach children to write letters a certain way.  I never understood that.  Why must a child write a letter in a way that someone else found important?  Why must children be pushed to make a letter from right to left, or curve the top of another letter from left to right?  Cursive is something that doesn't even come easy for many adults.  So as a homeschool mom, I have decided to just "let it go."  Just let him do what he feels comfortable doing.

I turned out to be a pretty good person, even with terrible handwriting.  I am just going to let him be who he is and write how he wants.  Because in the end, a person's worth isn't determined by how well they make the letter "A" on a sheet of paper.


What happened this time last year?