Showing posts with label Girl-Child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Girl-Child. Show all posts
A few weeks
ago I walked into a children’s clothing shop to buy a pretty dress for a friend who gave birth to a baby girl. I didn’t have much time, because it was
during my lunch break, but I marveled at how I spent 20 minutes walking back
and forth between three different outfits. Yes, baby girls have outfits… . You
must buy the hat , the shoes, or the hair band that comes along with the dress,
or the top , or even the skirt! Funnily enough, it is always a serious mission
to find a pretty dress for any lady,
whether she’s still a breastfeeding baby, or a
CEO of a successful tech company. It's a REAL mission!
I have never met this baby girl, I haven’t
even seen her, I will most likely not even spend that much time with her.
However, I am taking the time to pick
something special for her, because I
know from the loving way her mother and father announced her arrival that she’s important.
I like how we
decorate little girls, the puffy dresses, the cute pink shoes, those adorable
hats or hair bands. We dress little girls up from the day they are born and we
tell them how beautiful they are even before they understand what the word
beautiful means. It’s not so much in the things that we buy and decorate them
with, but more so the efforts we take to make them feel special. When my twin nieces were born, every chance my
mother got she bought dresses/outfits for them, one included a pink glitter
ensemble. She was so excited to do this for them. Of course, as toddlers,
within two weeks they had grown out of
them, but that, like I mentioned earlier, is besides the point.
You probably
don’t remember it, but if you grew up in
a loving home, important moments took
place between you and your loved ones.
They welcomed you into the world with such gusto! They prepared for your birth day, your jajja (grandfather)chose a
special name for you. Your grandmother told your mother some sacred life
lessons on the differences of parenting a girl. And your father was nervous
about whether he would be a good male role model for you, but the moment he
held you in his arms, he realized you didn’t care. He realized you were just delighted
he was there.
When you were a baby they smiled and cooed in
your face telling you how gorgeous you are. They did this before you even knew
how to seek out people’s approval. They planted that cliche (but crucial) seed
in you that told you ‘You are worthy”. When you put your puffy sleeved bright orange
dress on , and your father called you 'Cinderella',
you span around in glee! He made your day.
During that
time compliments came freely. You learnt
that you are beautiful just for being you. You did not even take that much time looking at yourself in the mirror. In those moments when they told you how smart you are, how kind you
are, and how brave you are they were
building you up to be the best you. How much time do you spend looking at yourself in the mirror now?
There
are many girls who will not have those moments. No one will rejoice on the day
they are born. No one will look at them lovingly when they smile. No one will
decorate them. In fact people will use
them as a punching bag for all their frustrations with life. Some of these
girls will learn to look after everyone else, yet no one will look after them. They will learn to beg for approval. They will
learn to exchange parts of themselves to get compliments. They will under
value their worth. Sadly they will treat other girls the same way, because that
is what they have learnt about being a woman.
We should never underestimate the importance
of unconditional love in the first few years of a child’s life. It’s vital for parents, grandparents, aunts ,
uncles to do their part in building children’s confidence in those younger years. Because
when she gets older…
- All the women on TV and Social Media will look nothing like her and comparison is part of human nature. She will start to notice the parts of her body that are not ‘perfect'
- People will dislike her just because she doesn’t seek their approval, yet they worked so hard to seek everybody else's.
- People will tell her who she can and can’t be, simply because she is woman.
- People will gladly point out her flaws, looking for opportunities to chip at her self-esteem.
- People will ignore her opinion, because she is supposed to be a meek, humble and shy.
- Some men will do all sorts of things to mess with her self- esteem, and sometimes she’ll believe them when they tell her it’s her fault.
So please don’t forget to
Plant that
seed
Plant that indestructible
seed of worthiness in her
Tell her how
wonderful she is before she can even pronounce the word
Tell her how
wonderful she is in as many languages as you can
Then teach
her how to spell the word in all those languages before she reaches primary
school
Teach her how
to play with Barbie, but also teach her how to build robots
And when she
tells you that someone said she can’t play with robots because she’s a girl, tell
her she is LIMITLESS
Tell her
that when she gets older the world will tell her differently, but no matter
what happens she must look deep inside herself and remember what you planted.
Tell her that
what you have planted and watered needs to be kept alive even when life is hard
Show her
with your own life how to keep that seed growing and spreading into all the good that
God wants her to become.
I wrote this on the 5th December 2015 during the UNICEF Uganda Media Tour
It's a humid Saturday morning when we arrive at Bondo Health center in our air-conditioned land rovers to have a meeting with health workers, teenage mothers and community members. I enter the stuffy metal tin roofed meeting room a little late, and find everyone settled on concrete benches. All eyes are on a young pregnant woman in the corner, I realise as the discussion is going on that she is not really a full grown adult woman, she is a pregnant teenage girl. Her hands are shaking she can barely get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes keep darting around the room looking for help. Anyone would feel nervous too, imagine sitting in a room full of strangers while they ask you, "How could you allow yourself to get pregnant?" "Will you be returning to school once you've had the baby?" It must be too overwhelming for a young girl like her, I doubt she ever considered the consequences of her pregnancy. We continue to ask our questions as though we understand (with our NGO jargon) what it means to be a girl like her. We ask our questions as though opportunities in this area are growing and falling off trees like unwanted over-ripe mangoes. At first she refuses to answer the questions and others decide to answer for her, They say "Her father died, Her mother went mad, there is nobody to guide her....." Finally my boss asks, " What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" There is some mumbling among the participants which dies down immediately and then the question is forgotten, and silence returns. Again my boss insists, "What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" To which there is silence until one brave middle-aged man stands up and says, "You see if she lived closer to me I would have advised her like a daughter to stay away from men, but the children of these days they are different. What can we do?" He shrugs his shoulders and sits down. He seems proud of himself thinking he has said what the NGOs want him to say. But they have still failed to answer the question. This man who impregnated her has quite simply and quickly been absolved of all responsibility. By now the young girl has already made her way to the back the room. Now unrecognizable among the crowd, she can relax and let them talk as though she isn't there. Eventually my boss asks another question, "What would the women in this community like to see happen so that girls are better protected from defilement?" He kindly gestures towards the women in the room as he talks to the translator. First there is silence, except for the children playing outside. My boss asks his question again and some smiles appear on the women's faces. Can you imagine a man actually ignoring what the men have said and now seeking their opinion? Then finally one among many is brave enough to stand up and say, "Here we have no voice. In our community it is the men who make all the decisions. Even if it is our hardwork that brings in the income, it makes no difference, for it is the men who decide how to spend the money, some days you can even fight with your husband to pay school fees for your children." #Arua #InvestInUGchildren
It's a humid Saturday morning when we arrive at Bondo Health center in our air-conditioned land rovers to have a meeting with health workers, teenage mothers and community members. I enter the stuffy metal tin roofed meeting room a little late, and find everyone settled on concrete benches. All eyes are on a young pregnant woman in the corner, I realise as the discussion is going on that she is not really a full grown adult woman, she is a pregnant teenage girl. Her hands are shaking she can barely get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes keep darting around the room looking for help. Anyone would feel nervous too, imagine sitting in a room full of strangers while they ask you, "How could you allow yourself to get pregnant?" "Will you be returning to school once you've had the baby?" It must be too overwhelming for a young girl like her, I doubt she ever considered the consequences of her pregnancy. We continue to ask our questions as though we understand (with our NGO jargon) what it means to be a girl like her. We ask our questions as though opportunities in this area are growing and falling off trees like unwanted over-ripe mangoes. At first she refuses to answer the questions and others decide to answer for her, They say "Her father died, Her mother went mad, there is nobody to guide her....." Finally my boss asks, " What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" There is some mumbling among the participants which dies down immediately and then the question is forgotten, and silence returns. Again my boss insists, "What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" To which there is silence until one brave middle-aged man stands up and says, "You see if she lived closer to me I would have advised her like a daughter to stay away from men, but the children of these days they are different. What can we do?" He shrugs his shoulders and sits down. He seems proud of himself thinking he has said what the NGOs want him to say. But they have still failed to answer the question. This man who impregnated her has quite simply and quickly been absolved of all responsibility. By now the young girl has already made her way to the back the room. Now unrecognizable among the crowd, she can relax and let them talk as though she isn't there. Eventually my boss asks another question, "What would the women in this community like to see happen so that girls are better protected from defilement?" He kindly gestures towards the women in the room as he talks to the translator. First there is silence, except for the children playing outside. My boss asks his question again and some smiles appear on the women's faces. Can you imagine a man actually ignoring what the men have said and now seeking their opinion? Then finally one among many is brave enough to stand up and say, "Here we have no voice. In our community it is the men who make all the decisions. Even if it is our hardwork that brings in the income, it makes no difference, for it is the men who decide how to spend the money, some days you can even fight with your husband to pay school fees for your children." #Arua #InvestInUGchildren
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