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Famous Incarnation?

BriarRose

Senior Registered
My oldest daughter was a really precocious child. She could verbally identify all the letters of the alphabet when she was thirteen months old, and sing "Frere Jacques" in French. She read, and enjoyed, "Charlotte's Web" at three, the entire Ring Trilogy at four, and Kafka's "Metamorphosis" at five. Weirdly, her father and I thought she was "average", and most of our friends had developmentally "slow" children. The reason for this post is that when she was two, PBS was airing a special about Beatrix Potter. They did promos for several weeks before the program aired. The promos mentioned the story, "Jemima Puddleduck". My daughter said, " I wrote that story! How dare they say someone else wrote it!" Another promo showed Beatrix Potter's house, and she said, "Oh look! My house is on television!" I didn't follow up on these hints, which now I deeply regret. At the time, I just thought her claims were adorable. A few weeks later, I asked if she wanted a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and she said "Mommy, man does not live by peanut butter alone.", so you see she really was precocious. Knowing what I know now, I think she may have been Beatrix Potter in a Pl. My son toddled around the house talking about Guadalcanal when he was eighteen months. As research on children's past lives grows, I'm sure parents will take these hints more seriously. Does anyone else know if there are living people claiming to be Beatrix Potter?
 
The Library at CSU Fresno (aka Fresno State) has an extensive collection of B. Potter's work housed in a special section. I know the woman who was responsible for that collection being established a few years ago. She belongs to the international Beautrix Potter association. You can probably find a lot on the internet. Let me know if you would like to contact the local woman. I don't know if she is open to PL, but several of her friends (including me) are.
 
Thanks for your help, Argonne. My daughter is coming to visit in December. I'll ask her if she has any memory of what happened, or any feelings about Beatrix Potter. I went on the internet, and looked at the Potter Society website. She told me about Potter in the 70's, and like most children, stopped talking about it by the time she was three. She continued to be remarkable, and makes her living as a writer. We'll see if anything can be done at this point. I think mine is a cautionary tale for parents who don't take their children's comments seriously.
 
beatrix potter


hi briarrose, what a small worls it is. I live not far from bp's house and know quite a few people who work there. I would love to answer any quetions if it helps & know a basic history of how she came here and what she did. She was more famous around here for her farming and sheep rearing.


I to was alover of her books when I grew up, she seems to have come back in fahion from the amount of visitors the house gets everyyearr. Have you seen the film miss potter? It,s worth watching, just as a good film.
 
Starrynight, I never could have imagined that another member is living a few miles from Beatrix Potter's house. There really are no coincidences. Thank you so much for your kind offer, and I will remember it if the need arises. I remember that my daughter used to say when she was two, "They showed me several mommies. One was beautiful, and blonde, but when I saw you, I thought, "I'll take the funny red-haired Mommy who reads a lot." I did some on-line research, and found two people claiming to be Beatrix Potter. One was on a facetious blog, and one on a rather strange religious forum, with very esoteric spiritual references that I've never come across before. Argonne, your comment on another post, about how easy the internet makes research is so "right on".
 
I don't want to sound harsh, but reading something doesn't mean necessarily understanding it, especially not with the depth of an older person reading it. One of my little cousins read a lot of classics at a very, very young age, but it's more or less obvious that while he understood the plot, anything more "philosophical" and certain cultural references in the books went over his head. Of course, it does sound like your daughter is on a good path if she has that range of vocabulary at her age, and it's awesome that you're encouraging her to read. I have some classmates at university-level who wouldn't understand those books either if they even bothered to read them. :D


Which sites did you find (feel free to PM me if it's not ok to post here)? One of them might be by a friend of mine but it's fictional in nature. I Googled it and I think I also found the very esoteric site you were referring to, maybe it would still be worth registering and dropping that person a PM over there.


As to your daughter, have you tried asking her things like "When you lived in that house, were you a boy or a girl?", "What did you dress like?", "What kind of things did you do?". It would be interesting to see how much she remembers. I used to be obsessed with Beatrix Potter so if you need help with any research, I can try to help as well.


Finally, the "I'll take the funny red-haired Mommy who reads a lot" thing brought a smile to my face. That's really adorable.
 
Well, first off, my daughter is 42, so she is well past the age of understanding "Peter Rabbit". She understood Kafka perfectly at age five. I asked her recently if she had any memories about Beatrix Potter, but she said only of recognizing the house, and telling me that she wrote Potter's books. It is, alas, far too late to delve into her memories. Yes, she did live up to her potential quite a long time ago! She is quite a fine writer, and makes her living doing that. I doubt she would ever claim to have been Beatrix Potter - I simply found her early claims to be a curiosity!
 
BriarRose said:
Well, first off, my daughter is 42, so she is well past the age of understanding "Peter Rabbit". She understood Kafka perfectly at age five. I asked her recently if she had any memories about Beatrix Potter, but she said only of recognizing the house, and telling me that she wrote Potter's books. It is, alas, far too late to delve into her memories. Yes, she did live up to her potential quite a long time ago! She is quite a fine writer, and makes her living doing that. I doubt she would ever claim to have been Beatrix Potter - I simply found her early claims to be a curiosity!
I didn't know your daughter was now 42. Your post comes across as a bit defensive -- I was not in any way implying that your daughter isn't intelligent, just that "understanding Kafka perfectly" at age 5 may not be as perfect an understanding as parents would think. Each to her own and I'm not trying to claim you're a liar! I also didn't say she wasn't Beatrix Potter, I was actually offering to help with your research as you mentioned using the Internet to research her childhood claims, and since I suspect that one of the sites messing up your research may belong to one of my friends I was offering to clear that up for you if you needed it.
 
Thank you for the offer, but this is not something that I am researching. This was a casual thread started a months ago, with no serious intent. A curiosity, and nothing more.
 
Im sorry to hear that. I had forgotten about this thread. When i saw it pop up again i was curious if anything new had occurred.
 
No, Totoro. Because she is an adult, I feel like her past lives would be up to her to explore or not, as she sees fit. It was obvious that she was an old soul, from the beginning. She was quite clear that the cottage was her house, and that she wrote those books. Whether she was Beatrix, or not, I can't say. Parents didn't follow up on those things in the 1970's. I think that she said those things was a curiosity for me. The post was also meant as an object lesson for the current crop of parents. It is far easier to ask the right questions when the child is two, not forty years later. One amusing coincidence though - her husband was named Peter! Deborah posted something the other day that gave me pause.


She said that the soul is pulled to a womb with the "right' vibration. Despite my other faults, : angel I am a good mother for a writer. Two of my children have experienced success in that field. Once, long ago, I dreamt that I was Ceridwen, the mother of poets. Go figure!
 
Interesting story. It seems likely that your daughter was Beatrix Potter. My oldest daughter, who is now 27, was also a precocious child. Not quite to your daughters level, but she was above average. Between the ages of seven and eight years old she had read all of Joy Adamson's books. I remember from about age five on up she would checkout a stack of non fiction books about animals at the library, and read all of them. She began to keep a journal at about eight years old, and she discovered she had a passion for writing. Her junior year writing portfolio at WSU received distinction within the top 10% of the nation.


My daughter never had any concrete past life memories, but she had flashes of past lives, and she did say some strange things when she was little. One time when she was barely three she was making a big hill with sand; we asked her what she was making, and she replied, "plastic worms." ??? We still can't fathom that one.


My two daughters and I believe in reincarnation. We all have some flash memories of past lives, but we don't feel the need to validate them with research. I guess it is because we are too busy dealing with our current life challenges. But it is fascinating to read about others who have found validation.
 
HI, I had to add to this again, being in BP country. Briarrose, I'd be interested in what sort of area your daughter's drawn to.


BP chose to move here, with a love for the countryside, plants and nature. She was expected to live in London with her family. It's worth thinking about the sort of area your daughter prefers to live.
 
Val said:
My daughter never had any concrete past life memories, but she had flashes of past lives, and she did say some strange thinn language gs when she was little. One time when she was barely three she was making a big hill with sand; we asked her what she was making, and she replied, "plastic worms." ??? We still can't fathom that one.
I wonder if that could have been a foreign language that didn't come out right?
 
{"I wonder if that could have been a foreign language that didn't come out right?"}


Maybe, but she spoke pretty clearly even at that age.
 
Hi, starrynight. Thank you all for your comments. She is very drawn to England. All the magazines that she buys are British ones. She especially loves the ones about country houses. She is planning to visit Britain as soon as she can. She watches British TV programming when it's available, but so do I! It's much more entertaining. As for the area she is most drawn to, I will have to ask! I appreciate the question - I hadn't realized how drawn to England she is.
 
It's nice to know she's drawn here and the lake district is lovely, quite different from a lot of the country-no big towns. Keep me posted.
 
I think kids probably go through a unique where they get frustrated because they are trying to do or say something that should have been easy to do or remember for them.


I remember having a distinct feeling for a long time that was much like forgetting where you left your keys; just that gnawing irritation that you should know, but you just don't!
 
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