Beta children are boring and regular but he's special, descended from French royalty and pirates and survivors. No matter what snide comments they make about his future, Sherlock knows he can do anything he wants to when he grows up. Sherlock knows this because his mummy is living evidence.

Being an Omega female she's prized among her kind yet pigeonholed by society at large who see her as nothing but a baby machine. Despite this she has never let anyone or anything stop her from doing what she wants. She's educated and travelled and fluent in nearly three languages. She can play piano and sing and was a trained midwife before starting a family of her own. To Sherlock mummy is everything he wants to be when he is older and his main role model in life.

It is due significantly to her influence that Sherlock embraces his differences rather than hiding his true self using the medication and therapy that is offered by those that believe Alphas and Omegas are unnatural. Those things while being technically illegal in Britain are not in reality hard to get hold of, with many horrid television soaps his babysitter Ellen watches avidly featuring plotlines involving characters secretly buying tapes and taking pills to turn them into Betas only to be found out later on.

Flyers for such things turn up in their mail now and again and are often delivered by those religious Betas who believe that they should repent and ask God's forgiveness (for what Sherlock doesn't really know). Every time they do his mother gets sad and shuts herself up in Sherrinford's old room, the one room in the house no one else is allowed to go in. Not even Joan their maid.

Sherlock knows his mother cries in there because the flyers remind her of Sherrinford even without using his deduction skills. It worries Sherlock slightly when she does this for he doesn't quite understand why she gets so upset. So Sherrinford had renounced his Alpha ways and run away from home determined to live life as an ordinary Beta, he'd did so ages ago when Sherlock was still just a baby. Mummy still had father, Mycroft and him. Not to mention their large loving extended family made up of others just like them. Were they not enough? And if so why did she get sentimental over someone he couldn't even really remember anymore? Surely she had grieved for him long enough?

Sometimes Sherlock thinks he has dreams about Sherrinford his older absent brother, a half remembered face smiling at him with sad eyes. Sometimes Sherlock dreams off running off and finding Sherry and bringing him home to mummy. He doesn't tell mummy of these dreams for fear of upsetting her further.