childhood

Being a child is the best stage of life when we are not responsible, not accountable and not expected to have any commitments toward any attitudes or actions. We are just sweet, and loved always. Laughing, playing, and having lots of time to spend with all the family and been listened to with great attention where everyone wants to know what is in our thoughts.

My Childhood started just like that. I was a very spoiled child who had everything I wanted. Until the age of seven, things changed dramatically. That is the age when my life changed and I started to feel differently. My father was taking it more seriously with me and my brothers considering that we have grown up and we are accountable for our own actions. Seeing the way he was punishing my brothers, made it more serious than it was in my mind. That built a great fear inside me. That might have been a kind of message he was trying to clarify to me before I commit any thing wrong.
Since that day, I always lived in fear. Fear of being punished, fear of making mistakes, and fear of thinking differently. I sometimes had a feeling that my father could read my mind and he knew exactly what I am thinking about. And that used to scare me a lot.

We were always expected to do what we were told to do. We were so accountable for our attitudes toward everything; the way we walk, the way we talk in front of people, the way we eat and even the way we shake hand with people who are older than us. Everything was specified to us and all we had to do is what we were told to. There was no forgiveness or second chance for any simple mistake even if it was from a child like me.

I then started being careful with my attitudes. I promised myself to always be a good child, so my father, will never punish me. I always promised myself that I am going to have a great attitude and will grow up as a well behaved girl and will be a great lady with good manners and attitudes.
Every morning I woke up asking myself, what should I do to see my father always happy? And every night I used to go to bed in fear of committing any mistake which I will be punished the next day. Sometimes I keep suspecting that I did something wrong and the guilt stays inside my heart for days and days without even doing anything.

I was always a well behaved child with good manners and do whatever I was told to do without asking why and where and never said a in my life.
I was excellent in school and the whole society was proud of me. That made me even more happy and satisfied.
At age of nine, I started learning how to cook and I was so much into learning it believing that all the girls should learn how to cook because they are supposed to cook for the family. And that is the only way a girl accepted in a society. I also used to believe that it is my job as a woman to take care of the family and obey men’s command even my brothers and totally respected that.
By age of ten, I was an excellent cook and that made me even more proud of myself in the society.
However, my family was very supportive during my school. My father used to always push me into studying and make sure I join the university. But, he was more ordering me into studies and what he wanted me to be more than sitting beside me or be with me and ask me what I do want in my life. We were well brain-washed of how life should go and what we should do to make it run in the right way. The way they wanted it to be and the way they wanted to present us as their kids, proudly in front of the society. I always had a thought that something was missing in my life. Something is not going right somewhere in the way we are living.

The years passed and by age of fourteen I was an excellent girl in the family and an excellent future wife, being so nice, so respectful and with great attitudes toward everyone.
The most important is being an excellent chef. I never had any more interest in playing with others, or entertain myself, because I started looking at myself as a grown up girl and looking at things more seriously and carefully. I want so much into my studies.
Most importantly, after school my routine was cleaning the house and making dinner for the family without being asked. I am not sure until this day why I was doing this. It might be a way of escape from punishment or being told of for not trying to do it or it way a way to show off to the family that I can be a good house wife. I had to take care of my brothers and sisters after school. Surprisingly, I used to love doing it as I considered it as part of my responsibilities in the house, without being asked to do so.

I believed that, that was the perfect way of living as a girl in our society and that was the way we were supposed to grow up.

Something strongly was telling me that this can not be the only way to be happy. I used to ask myself if I was happy and I end up convincing myself that seeing my family happy is my happiness. But then, I started blaming myself for thinking differently as I belong to this society and I should follow what my family believed in. I made myself unconsciously believing that I was deeply happy when I was burying myself a life by closing down my brain and make it limited to the way it is supposed to be in order to fit in the society.

Realising that I was expected to grow up as a girl more than a child and taking care of my siblings, made me more confident in being a responsible girl.

By age of sixteen, I strongly believed that I was ready to get married in few years and be a great wife and a mother who takes care of her husband and children. I can’t believe I had that way of thinking in my mind. I was completely convinced about it.
Thinking of the way I grew up I realised that my family always planned for me to be a good wife. They never planned for anything else for me, as that is the way they lived and they believe in it as happiness.
They lived to have children who can live the same way as they did, not more and not less. They never thought that there is another life out there somewhere else on the other side of the planet. They just thought of multiplying and proliferate of a generation which is the exact copy of them and expand it. Innocently steel their happiness the same way as it was takes from them. Brain wash them exactly like how their brains were washed by giving them written rules to follow, or they will be abandoned and disowned. And be threatened their whole entire life with punishment with no choices.

Unfortunately, that successfully happened with most of the family members and society.

I never thought that I was an innocent child and disserve to have my rights of choosing what I want to d or have the right to enjoy my childhood happily by playing, reading, learning and widening my thoughts. That was out of my world.
We never grew up in a way that we develop our brain, develop our way of thinking or improve our brains intellectually.
We had rules to follow, attitudes that are expected in our culture and religion. We are controlled by threatening and building fear in our brain and heart. Fear of punishment which still has control on me sometimes.
It is a shame that I never go the opportunity of choosing things that would be good for my future, not even the choice of thinking for my self or even the question of what I wanted in life. I would have saved my life allot earlier.

All this brings important things in my brain which was not functioning till recently. That we have rights to fight for from the day we were born to the day we die. But, we can never have them unless we fight for them. Some people might know about it. But, I never knew and I am still learning.