What! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder & the beholder is one's mind.
Cast off the chains of suppresion & bask in the beauty of being alive. That's all there is.

"SIN" is nothing but an attempt to control you.

I was mostly raised by my grandparents... They were always nice to me because I had lost my mom and dad when I was ten... They were always gentle with me... But they weren't pushovers either...

When I was very young I thought doubting Thomas was interesting because Thomas was part of his name. That and my mother got me a tiny statue of him for my Communion party.

What a shame! And you are so pretty, that was just evil jealousy I think.

I was always impressed as a child by hearing of Michael the Archangel in the bible. This was because Michael is my middle name.

I had a total lack of authority since my mom used to work many hours and me and my brother were frequently alone or with some nanny. When my son was a little kid and I had to take some decision about him I often would think "what my mom would do?" And I'd do the opposite. It worked great. My son is an amazing kid!

My father was in the army, high ranking, mom was taking care of my brother who had hemophilia type A, so I was basically raised by a very loving maid who was overweight. I believe that because my older brother was so sickly, they told the maid to make sure I was healthy. For her, it meant eat anything you want, so she basically over fed me. I was a fat kid but very happy. Took time to shed the pounds because I just loved to eat, anything I wanted my "mom" made and so delicious, but during my teens I finally did. Dad passed in 1980, my older brother in the 90s, I still have my two moms alive and well. My real mom is almost 90 and lives in Palm Beach, my "mom" same age but went back to her country (Peru) and always writes me to make sure I'm properly fed.

My mother would beat me often. She wanted a perfect child but got me instead.

A massive lack of supervision as I grew up, in various households, left me pretty undisciplined and hating imposed control. After repeated punishments to no avail, the army eventually recognised this and put me in charge of my own two man operation, where I flourished.
Later, as a technician, my company discovered that I was damned good, but was not a clock watcher or follower of official policy. I eventually became top management. Finally, I started my own business, where I allowed my employees pretty free rein, and it paid off. They were a dedicated, happy lot.
So my "abandoned" childhood perhaps wasn't such a bad thing.

Mealtimes were very uncomfortable when I was a kid. My father was like one of those cartoon characters with a permanent cloud over his head. No one spoke and the atmosphere was grim so I wolfed down my food to escape as quickly as possible. I still find That I eat my food too quickly.

Hyper vigilance from an overly sensitive older brother.