A child's mind is like plain paper, whatever he sees around gets imprinted and actually makes his or her personality!
But, now when I look back, we are taught these toxic traits since childhood! And I am not quite sure why?
Since childhood,
We are taught toxic traits like racism, castism, finding all the negative things in a person, never acknowledging the good people do to us, eavesdropping, never accepting your mistake, always trying to find someone to blame our mistakes on, not being a good listener, always being afraid of losing a relationship just because we did one thing we wanted, and sexism!
I know we are not taught these things in school, and neither our parents make us sit and teach all of this stuff! But, a baby's mind is active since its conception. Even if a fetus is in the womb, the stress or happy hormones of his mother affect him equally. There are many things that we say "ye to pet se hi sikh ke aaya hai" ("he learned this in the womb only"). Everything that a mother goes through, the fetus goes through that too. Over our growing years, even when we can't speak, we can hear and see the things around us! We can feel everything! And over time, our mind is trained that what is happening around us is what happens in the whole world and this is the only right thing!
I am saying this because I experienced at every stage of my life! At first, I used to believe (because of what was normal in my home) that it is the duty of a mother to cook, serve, and clean, and in her absence it becomes the duty of a sister or a daughter. Once a school friend opened her lunch box and said my father made this, please try! I asked her "tere papa bh banate hain khana?" she said yes, he cooks often and he loves to cook our favorite dishes. This was the first incident that made me think that "oh! fathers can cook too. Obviously, they can, it's just that they don't because they have this privilege just because they are men!"
It is not the only incident, it is just an example to explain what I am trying to say! I have even heard comments such as "itni kaali ladki ko dost kyu banaya hai?" ("why are you friends with a girl with a dark skin tone?")! And I was like how am I supposed to distinguish my friends based on their skin tone? and why?? And that too when my brother was always teasing me because my skin tone darker than other siblings. Hehe. Irony of life!!!
I made my mind more accepting since then. I started to teach my mind that the things you know are not the only normal. Every country, every city, every religion, and even every home has its own normal! And all normals are normals, just they are different from each other. But then why do we hate other normals? Why do our families talk bad about things people outside of our families do? Why are we so selfish? Maybe that is "normal" for them as they grew up listening to such things at their homes, and they never came out of that loop of patriarchy, stereotypes, castism, or racism!
I gave a lot of thought to it, how can we change this? We cannot tell our parents to change their minds all of sudden. No, I am not saying this out of fear of elders. I am saying this because I tried it at different points in time! We can only practically and gradually make them understand to be more accepting of at least the things that are going on in the world! But can we break the cycle here?
Yes! Yes, we can. We can do that by first getting out of this loop by any means, even if it means getting therapy! And then, creating a home for your child where your child doesn't have to see such things, where your child can come up to you and tell you that he failed a test, an interview, or a relationship, without being afraid of punishment from you!
Lastly, I know that all of us won't agree with what I just said, but I don't need all of you to agree too! This is what has been going on in my mind for so long and I write to free my mind!
If you are reading this, thank you so much! If you want to say something, please add a comment and share your views! All views are welcome :)
Take care!
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