Parents’ role in building child’s self-image

One of my workmates has a daughter who is at her early twenties. I have known her since she was in elementary school. She had somewhat plump body and she was a bit tomboy until graduating from senior high school. In 2002 she moved out of town to continue her study. Last year, she was seen again at the office, to visit her mother and she looked very different. She was not plump anymore and looked very feminine with her long hair. So slim was she that my workmates and I suspected that she was an anorexic or bulimic. We felt pity for her. And we were wondering if her mother did not warn her to take care of her health. But then I remembered, this workmate of mine, more than a decade ago, used to complain about her body a lot. She always felt she was plump although I thought she was not.
I assume that the way the mother valued her body has influenced the way the daughter saw her own body. “It is really a big disaster to gain weight, although only a little,” once she said, when attending a workmate’s wedding party. Therefore, she didn’t eat anything but some slices of watermelon.
Some time ago, another workmate saw the mother purging after having meal. It means the mother as well as the daughter suffer from the same thing.
*****
I must say that I was somewhat anorexic when I was at junior high. Some friends (especially a boy I used to have a crush on) said that I would look prettier when slimmer. Therefore in senior high, I used to fast outside Ramadhan month without eating ‘sahur’ (having meal early in the morning before dawn) and successfully decreased my weight. Luckily I didn’t do it so terribly that I suffered from stomach disorder.
Realizing that it was not good for health, I keep telling Angie to love herself, and feel at ease with her body, slim or plump, especially after Angie entered adolescence. I opine that as the mother, I have a big role in helping Angie shape positive attitude toward herself. After that, I also ask her to do the same thing toward her friends. “God never creates ugly things. Human beings give values that are sometimes not necessary. Appreciate everyone the same way.” Still, sometimes she finds a schoolmate who says rude and ugly things toward Angie, and she complains to me.
“Honey, his mother or his father doesn’t teach him to appreciate God’s creature fairly. It even means that inside his heart he feels something wrong or he lacks of something so that he keeps looking for weaknesses in other people, especially physically. He deserves to get pity instead, not you.” I was trying to comfort her.
*****
Meanwhile I still remember at kindergarten, Angie did not like one of her classmates. She kept protesting when her class teacher paired up her with that classmate until this mate felt afraid to Angie. She didn’t tell me about it but her class teacher did. When I asked her why she didn’t like working together that classmate, little Angie said, “She is so slow, not energetic, not lively.” Gosh!!! I never taught her such things, to treat her classmates differently based on their intelligence.
However, after Angie entered adolescence, I did tell her to value people on intelligence more than physical things, especially in looking for a boyfriend. :)
PT56 19.37 140908

Breastfeeding Bill?

This recent week one mailing list I join has been talking about the plan of the Health Institution of South Sulawesi to issue a provincial bill to (somewhat) force women who just deliver babies to breastfeed them as well as to manage the distribution of formula milk in the area. The deputy head of the Health Institution, Saad Bustam said that there was a tendency for women (especially working women) nowadays to give their babies formula milk instead of breastfeed them with practicality as the main reason while in fact it is believed that mothers’ milk is the best for babies. The background of this plan is because Human Development Index of the area is in the twenty-third rank. It is assumed that giving mothers’ milk to the babies will improve the quality of human resources in the area so that in the future it is expected to be able to increase the Human Development Index.
The discussion of this subject in the mailing list is related to the anti pornography bill that eventually just makes women criminals. For example, women are not allowed to wear sheer clothes that will turn on men in public places. When sexual abuse is done by those men, due to the sheer clothes women wear, the women will be imprisoned. So, instead of protecting women from sexual abuse, the anti pornography bill just makes women criminals.
So will the “mothers’ milk bill”, I assume. When a woman cannot breastfeed her baby—with so many reasons, such as the woman has to go out of town to work while she doesn’t have money to bring the baby with her so that she has to leave the baby in the village where the grandmother, or any other female relatives, takes care of the baby, or because of natural cause, the woman cannot produce any milk from her breasts, which is oftentimes possible to happen—the woman will be put in jail, or pay fine.
A good thing has been done by the Health Institution though: providing special rooms for women who want to breastfeed their babies in malls so that the women do not do that in open public areas. Related to the anti pornography bill, a woman can be imprisoned too when she breastfeeds her baby in a public area. She will be accused to intentionally show the sensual part of her body—breasts.
*****
When delivering my baby in 1991, I did that in one midwife’s house close to my dwelling place. Before my breasts produced milk, the assistant of the midwife prepared a glass of sugared water to give Angie when she was crying because of feeling thirsty or hungry. We used a small teaspoon to put the water into Angie’s tiny mouth. (She weighed 2.6 kg and 49 cm long.) Several hours after that, my breasts produced milk and I could breastfeed Angie directly. The midwife also prepared a box of formula milk in case we needed that. The midwife opined that it was better not to give the baby any formula milk yet before the mother produced milk.
I concluded that the midwife wanted to indirectly campaign to breastfeed babies for women who delivered babies in her house. This is absolutely good.
FYI, I breastfed Angie till she was four months old without giving her any other milk or any food. After that, I still breastfed her until she was one year old, (because I had to resume my study out of town and she was with her granny) but of course plus food. I started to give her formula milk when I was busy resuming my study.
*****
Recently when some good friends of mine got married, got pregnant, and then delivered their babies in hospitals (not in a midwife’s house like my experience), I heard similar experiences. Before their breasts produced milk, the nurses gave the babies formula milk when the babies cried. They apparently didn’t have patience to wait until the babies’ mothers could breastfeed them. Or perhaps there was cooperation between the hospital and the formula milk distributors for profit.
What happened after that? Some friends told me that their babies didn’t want to drink the mother’s milk, they chose the formula milk instead. That was the first liquid they tasted and they didn’t want any other. Some others said that they still could breastfeed their babies, but not as the main milk, only as the additional one.
*****
Is breastfeeding included women’s destiny? So that they are not supposed to avoid it? I don’t agree with it although only women have breasts, and not men. Under some special circumstances, some women cannot produce milk from their breasts although they just deliver babies. What is wrong? Well, I never know why.
When Angie was born in April 1991, there was a neighbor of mine who delivered her baby several weeks afterwards. Without knowing why, her breasts didn’t produce any milk so that she had to give her baby formula milk. She felt very disappointed but any effort she did to make her breasts produce milk was in vain. Was she a bad mother? Of course not. What happened was really beyond her capability.
PT56 11.45 190508

Angie versus Mia

Angie means my Lovely Star—Dzikrina Angie Pitaloka; while Mia is the nickname of Mia Thermopolis, the narrator of teen-lit novel entitled Princess Diaries written by Meg Cabot.
I bought the first serial of Princess Diaries in 2003, four years ago, when Angie was twelve years ago. In the first book, Mia was fourteen years old. As far as I remember Princess Diaries is the first teen-lit novel Angie read. At first, she complained why I bought here such a book, “Mia is fourteen while I am only twelve,” she said.
“Well honey, only two years difference, that’s not a big deal of course. I do hope you can get a good lesson from this novel.” I reasoned four years ago.
And my guess was right: Angie loved it. And sometimes she even was so absorbed that she saw herself as a “princess to be”. LOL. I assume she mixed it with Cinderella story (with its Cinderella complex!!!) (Un)luckily, in the first serial, Meg Cabot didn’t illustrate Mia as a feminist, only her mother: as a feminist who often did weird things with her weird feminist friends. It was similar to Angie and me: Angie didn’t know much about feminism, and perhaps she also saw me as weirdo: a feminist who was much different from her friends’ mothers, or our female neighbors who seemed to enjoy being full housewives. Unfortunately, in the first series of Princess Diaries, the relationship between Mia and her mother was not as open as my relationship with Angie since Mia seemed not to like her mother’s “weird” things many feminists (probably) do: such as not marrying Mia’s father, although she already got a baby from the man: Mia. One thing I remember (though I don’t remember in which serial Cabot wrote about it): when Mia’s mother offered her to talk about sexuality openly by coming to Mia’s room and encouraging her to talk about it heart to heart: instead of having a lively and comfortable talk with her feminist mother, Mia rejected it, saying to herself: “Sex? Oh no, my mom must be insane thinking that I am already interested in sex.” Well, I don’t remember how old Mia was when Cabot narrated that part. (FYI, I have the complete serials of Princess Diaries, only Angie doesn’t collect them in one bookshelf. Perhaps some books are borrowed by her friends. 
Realizing that as a teenager, Angie is still undergoing unstable mental progress, frankly speaking I often feel worried that Angie will blatantly follow her “role models” in some teen-lit novels she reads, including Princess Diaries. (The era when I bought her some religious collection short stories has been over! It is because in those stories the narration is clearly only between black and white, good and bad, no character is in grey area. In the reality, life is not just black and white like that, oftentimes we are surrounded by “grey things”, moreover I raise Angie as a secular, which in my opinion is often related to grey area.) Mostly after reading some teen-lit novels or watching movies/soap operas on television about teenagers, I wait for Angie to ask me about what she has read/watched, and discuss it together. She seldom does that, though.
In the last serial of Princess Diaries (the title is “Princess in the Brink” if I am not mistaken), Mia was narrated to be thinking of doing lovemaking for the first time with Michael. I assumed, no matter what, Cabot wouldn’t let it happen. (Honestly, as a feminist living in Indonesia, an area called “the Eastern” part of the globe, thinking of Angie will do it before getting married—moreover in a very young age, just like Mia who was still sixteen years old, the same age as Angie at the moment—really scared me, although I DO REALIZE that doing sex is everybody’s right.)
I must admit that there was a relief feeling in me when coming to the part that Mia didn’t do that with Michael. (silly of me! LOL.) Surprisingly, Cabot then wrote the “intimate scene” between Mia and her mother, because Mia needed to confide in someone, and she chose her mother as the first person to release her disappointment knowing that in fact Michael was no longer virgin. 
After reading that, I noticed that recently, Angie loved to be intimate with me on the bed before both of us fell asleep: one thing she used to love doing as a kid, but she seldom did that after she reached teenage.
Two nights ago, while lying on the bed in the dark, Angie was very close to me, kissing my right ears, and whispered, “You smell nice Mama. Will I still smell good like you after I become a mother?” LOL.
As what always happens to anybody else, kids will always be kid, won’t they? Anyway, I still love when Angie does things like what she used to do to me when she was a small kid.  A mother will always be a mother? LOL. LOL.
PT56 15.30 151207

Mother-Daughter Relationship

Below is the paper I wrote for the final project of AMERICAN’S MULTICULTURALISM IN LITERATURE class I attended four years ago, and Professor Hugh Egan from Ithaca College New York was the lecturer. (NOTE: I was not a feminist yet. LOL.)

MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP

The story Two Kinds written by Amy Tan reminds me of my own experience with my daughter. Like the narrator’s mother, I also want my daughter to be a prodigy. When Angie—my only daughter—was two years old, I taught her to read. I bought a lot of children books full of colorful pictures. She was really interested so that she enjoyed opening the books, looking at the colorful pictures, and trying to memorize alphabets under each picture. I was very pleased when she could read and distinguish many kinds of colors—red, blue, white, yellow, pink, purple, black, green, brown, orange, and grey—at three years old. Her teachers at playgroup were astonished to know that. She said that children of that age usually could not read yet, and they were expected to know only three main colors—red, yellow, and green.
At kindergarten, she excelled over her classmates. She got her first trophy in dancing competition during her two years in kindergarten. Her teacher told me that she has talent in dancing. I did not send her to a special dancing class yet at that time. She got dancing lesson at school. In welfare party of kindergarten, besides leading her classmates recite Holy Alquran—we are Muslim—she performed dances and read a poem. I was very proud of her at that time though I knew that Angie was very tired at the end of the party.
At the first year of elementary school, besides going to school in the morning, she joined some activities in the afternoon—she joined English course, dancing, drawing, and also fashion modeling and a kind of leadership class to boost her self-confidence. This is because I realize that I am not a confident person to perform something in front of audience. I want her to be self-confident. Once in a while, my sister who worked as a radio announcer asked Angie to accompany her as an announcer in a children program in her workplace.
Different from my daughter, I never joined any kind of courses when I was a kid. At that time, joining courses was not a popular pastime. Besides, for my parents, to be a pious person is much more important than to be a prodigy. Therefore, I was sent to an Islamic elementary school. (I sent Angie to a public/state elementary school.) I believe my parents expected me to grow up to be a pious woman who would do the teachings of Islam strictly, just like them. They gave more attention whether I did the teachings of Islam—praying five times a day and fasting in Ramadhan month for 30 days besides reciting the Holy Alquran daily—than whether I studied at home, e.g. to do homework. My parents would be angry if I did not pray or recite Alquran, but they were not angry if I did not study. Besides, my parents taught me to obey whatever they told me to do. In Indonesia, children are taught like that, they are not supposed to oppose their parents in all aspects (except if the parents ask something considered sinful in the religion teachings, e.g. stealing). Parents are considered to know better what is good or bad for their children because of their advancement in age and experience.
During the last decade, I saw the culture changing. I think this is due to the globalization era. Indonesian people get influence from other countries; e.g. from movies, news, etc. when I was a kid, my parents did not give a special attention to my study—to be the best student in class for example. Now parents expect their children to study in the best school and to be the best student in class. Besides, they also want their children to have other activities outside school, such as joining English course, computer, drawing, dancing, playing music instrument, fashion modeling classes, and so on. (To meet the parents’ demand, people open such courses because they see it as lucrative business.) When I was a kid, it was not common for parents to talk about their children’s achievement in and outside school. Now, it becomes very common. A’s parents may ask B’s parents about the child’s achievement, while the children themselves ask each other, “Have you ever won a competition? What kind of competition? How many trophies have you got?” or “What kind of activities do you join outside school?” and so on, just like in the story of Two Kinds. And like in Two Kinds, I also find some parents who really want to see their children on the screen on television. They will do everything they can as long as they can make their dream—and not always their children’s—come true.
This phenomenon also influenced me. Having only one child, maybe I unconsciously gave a heavy burden to Angie. I wanted her to be the best student at school while at the same time I also wanted her to get a lot of achievements from her activities outside school. If I had more than one child, maybe I would share the burden with other children. For example, Angie got achievement at school (e.g. as the best student), another child would be a national swimmer, another one again a famous fashion model. Well, I do not know.
While the narrator in Two Kinds did not like her mother’s idea to make her prodigy, my daughter enjoyed all her activities outside school at that time. Especially she enjoyed most when she joined some competitions and became the winner, e.g. reading poem in English, reciting the Holy Alquran, dancing, and fashion modeling. I did not ignore her school though, she was the second best student in her class.
When she was at the third grade of elementary school (eight years old at that time), I started to teach her to ‘argue’ things when she did not like things I said or did to her. different from the narrator’s mother in Two Kinds, I did not really want her to obey anything I said or asked her to do for my sake. I wanted her to do things because she enjoyed it, and she felt that she needed and wanted to do it, not because she wanted to make me happy. I did not want our relationship like common mother-daughter relationship in Indonesia, and old-fashioned way where the mother commands and the daughter obeys—a kind of relationship I had with my mother when I was a kid. I want our relationship just like between friends. She was free to express her opinion to me about everything.
As I said earlier, my parents taught me to obey what they said. I was not supposed to disagree with their idea. In fact, I did not feel happy for that. However, I was taught that to oppose parents is sinful. Raised in a religious family, I did not dare to commit sin, because I was taught that sinful people would go to hell, the worst place that God has ever created, a very terrible place. On the other hand, if I obeyed what my parents said, I would go to heaven, the best and most comfortable place that God has created.
However, I did not really feel happy to be raised in such an atmosphere. I was not really open to my parents, worrying if my parents could not understand me and I would make them angry when I had a different idea from them. I was more open to my friends, telling them what I felt because they understood me more. It made my relationship with them not so intimate. I do not want such a thing to happen between Angie and me. I am worried if I am strict to my daughter, ask her to obey whatever I say to her, without respecting and listening to what she says, I will make my daughter confide in her friends more than in me. I do not like the idea that she tells her friends more than she tells me. I want her to regard me as someone who will always understand her, so that she will tell me freely what she thinks, feels, and does. I want to be the most trusted friend for her.
Because of my teaching to argue with me, Angie started to refuse to join any kind of activities and competitions. When I asked her why she refused, she just answered, “I just do not want to.” I told her, “It’s okay if you do not want to do something. But when you refuse to do it, or when you choose to do it, you must have a good reason for that. It is not wise to say, “I just do not want to do that!” but she still said the same thing. “I just don’t want to. No other reason.” Frankly speaking, I was disappointed. However, I had to respect what she wanted. Only once in a while she was willing to do the activities she usually did before or joined competition. She did not refuse offers like being a master of ceremony (she was the MC of an opening ceremony of Children’s Day in Central Java last year), a radio announcer, and a fashion model.
Going back to the story Two Kinds, I am very impressed with the narrator’s way to protest her mother. She said frankly, “I’m not going to play anymore. Why should I? I’m not a genius.” … “You want me to be someone that I’m not! I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!” Being born in America, though her mother was a Chinese immigrant, the narrator really had “courage” to oppose her mother. I believe she adopted American culture about freedom that she saw in her surrounding. When you feel like doing something, do it. When you do not like it, don’t do it. I dream that one day my daughter will speak up to me, to express what she feels about something, to give me clear reasons when she decides to do something or refuses to do it, and not just says, “I simply don’t want to do it, Ma!” or “I just want to do it, Ma!”
My comment about the narrator’s mother is that she is “split” into two. I think she migrated to the United States—like any other immigrants—to achieve success, meaning having much money while at the same time to forget her bitter past life. Besides, she also was inspired with one of American dreams—you can be whatever you want to be. She wanted her daughter—the narrator—to be whatever she wanted her daughter to be. In this case, she wanted to make the narrator an American child (to be like Shirley Temple for example). On the other hand, she still adhered to Chinese tradition. She insisted that the narrator be an obedient daughter. In her opinion, a child must obey what the parents command. A child is the property of parents so that the child is not free to decide his/her own future. It means that the narrator’s mother wanted to make her child an American child without forgetting that she has Chinese blood in the body.
I was sorry when the narrator said, “I wish I wasn’t your daughter. I wish you weren’t my mother.” In my opinion, it is a terrible thing to hear our daughter saying that. I would be very upset and feel miserable in her position. And it was a shame that in order to ‘defeat’ her mother’s obstinacy, the narrator said, “I wish I’d never been born! I wish I were dead!” I believe it struck her so hard that at last she stopped her ambition to make her daughter a prodigy.
Indeed, we must realize that our children do not rally belong to us. God does not really give them to us, He just lends them to us. Like what Anne Bradstreet wrote in one of her poem “Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent, Then, ta’en away unto eternity.” And in Islam, there is a tradition to say “Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un” which means “in fact everything and everyone on this earth belongs to God, so to Him everything and everyone will go back at the end” when we hear news that someone passes away.
It is true that through us—parents—children were born. However, it does not mean that they are ours so that we can do anything we want to do to them as if they were our properties. They have their own thinking, feeling, interest, which are different from our way of thinking, feeling, and interest.
The story reminds me that maybe it could happen to me too. My ambition to make my daughter a prodigy can ruin our relationship. I have to always remember that she is not me, she has her own world which is different from mine. She has her own way of thinking, feeling, and interest which may be contradictory to mine. And I have to respect that. In fact, I’d love to see her grow up and be a different person from me. in Indonesia—and maybe also in other nations—parents mostly want to see their children be better than they are in all aspects, having better education, job, luck, destiny, and especially for me, I want to see my daughter grow up having better character traits than I do—more intelligent, pious, broadminded, open-minded, confident, successful, and also wise. Too much to ask, yes, I realize that. but I think, other parents may share the same feeling with me.
-------------------------------------
COMMENT FROM PROFESSOR HUGH EGAN
As I read this revealing essay, I think that your daughter is quite lucky to have a mother as introspective and self-examining as you are. This is a nice meditation on how parental ambition can be self-defeating, turning kids into rebels rather than prodigies. I’m fascinated by a number things. First, you hint that your daughter started to rebel after you encouraged her in the art of argument—although her rebellion did not really take the form of argument, right? Second, you conclude (with Bradstreet) that children are only “lent” by God rather than given permanently, and I wonder if that religious thought actually provides the kind of comfort you say it does. There is something heartbreaking in seeing children willfully turn away from parental preferences, but it is also a normal psychological process by which they must define their own identities. It is this sort of explanation (rather than a religious explanation) that I rely upon when I think of my own children. (And we have some experiences in common.) I’m fascinated by your choice to emphasize education over religion (at least more than your parents emphasized it) in your own household, which leads to my question about whether traditional religion provides the kinds of answers you need. Fine work.
Yogya, June, 2003

Nosy ... nosy ... nosy ...

It was September 13, 2006 6.45 pm when Angie and I entered a food stall. The stall was not crowded. I only saw four people—two men and two women—in one table located in the middle of the room, and another pair in the right corner of the room. The room was not brightly lighted so the atmosphere was quite romantic to me. Angie chose to sit in the left corner of the room, a small table enough only for two people.
After the waitres came, Angie chose one portion of chicken steak with cappuccino milkshake, and I chose one portion of fried noodle with a glass of orange juice.
We didn’t wait for a long time for the order to come. We enjoyed our meals while Angie told me her experience at school, and I told her about my day at the office.
After we finished, Angie asked me to go home soon, and not lingering there. Before leaving, I went to the cashier to pay. The cashier greeted me politely, “Is that your daughter?”
“Yes, she used to study in the junior high school across the street from here. That’s why she knows this food stall.”
*****
Arriving home around 7.45pm, annoyedly Angie asked me whether I paid attention to the four people sitting in the middle of the room of the food stall. I didn’t. She continued complaining, “The two women looked at me curiously as if I were a bad girl. Their eyes were like police’s eyes looking into criminals! It must have been coz I am still wearing this school uniform. They must have accused me as hanging around after school instead of going home directly.”
It reminded me of the cashier’s polite question, “Is she your daughter?” Did she also share the same idea of the two woman looking at Angie curiously?
This was our second experience to drop by in a food stall around that time with Angie’s wearing school uniform. In the first experience, Angie complained too with some people’s looking at her curiously and then looked at the badge of her school.
To calm her, I said, “Honey, I am your mother. You are hanging around at this hour with me. And we directly dropped by here from your English course coz it was more practical rather than we go home first, you exchange your dress and then we go out again. Don’t really care to what other people think about us. And as your mother I know exactly what you have been doing since morning. And you know what you are doing. Don’t care what the hell they are thinking about us.”
“But Mom, don’t blame me if that judgmental look from those nosy guys bothers me.”
“Fine. But don’t think of it too much, okay? Remember, we are what we think, we are what we do, and not what other people think, not what other people accuse.”
Suddenly the telephone rang. Angie quickly went out of the bedroom to answer the call. Not long after that, I could hear her cheerful voice talking to her friend by phone.
This sucking society, with those sucking judgmental people... And they are my fellow citizens in Indonesia. :(
And when I told my workmates about this experience, they in fact, also shared the same idea with those fellow citizens of mine. LOL. They find it weird too to see students still wearing their school uniform in the evening.
Perhaps I am too ignorant. Perhaps coz I adored Emerson’s idea of nonconformity in the wrong place. LOL. It is coz I am a rebellious creature. LOL.
PT56 23.13 140906

Angie's childhood

Reading the review of The Price of Privilege (Harper Collins) by Madeline Levine PhD at Phillip’s blog (http://stroke.blog.co.uk) reminds me of my own experience when Angie was little.

Angie could read when she was three years old coz I started to introduce her to books when she was around one year old. She loved seeing the funny and colorful pictures in her books and started to pay attention to the letters under each picture. She could recognize different colors (red, blue, green, yellow, pink, gray, white, orange, brown) at the age when her friends only recognize only two or three colors maximally. This made the teacher in her playgroup recognize Angie as a smarter kid than her friends. I saw it too and felt proud coz of that.

When she was at kindergarten, she already could recite Alquran well while her classmates still learned how to spell the Arabic letters. By the end of the first year in her kindergarten, she performed many kinds of things on the stage, around six times (reciting Alquran, marching band, reading a poem, and performed three different dances). I was busy help her change her costume anytime she was about to perform. And again, I felt very proud coz of that.

Without my awareness, it made me more ambitious to see Angie excel at everything. When she started the first grade of elementary school, she joined some extra activities after school: English course, dancing, modeling, drawing, swimming, and playing keyboard. After some months, she started to join competition—dancing, English, modeling, drawing, and swimming. This made both of us busy every Sunday to join the competition here and there. She won some of those competitions. I saw her very proud with her trophies. And of course, I was also very proud.

Not long after that, she started to feel bored with her hectic activities everyday. She started to refuse to practice dancing, etc. I started to push her. I didn’t want to lose my dream to see my daughter as a star in all aspects.

Fortunately, my bigger love to her, rather than to myself—to be a selfish mother who wants to see the kid become the commodity of the mother’s egotism—could stop me.

I gave her the full right to choose what to do—to enjoy her childhood by being an ordinary kid (without any pressure to excel in anything), or to join any competition when she wanted to do that, especially when she missed to feel to be the center of attention when she was on the stage.

Angie is a very common girl now among her school friends. Sometimes both of us love to spend time to look at the pictures when she joined many competitions as one unforgettable experience. In fact, Angie loved to remember the time when she was the star of a stage. LOL. Her busy schedule at school of course doesn’t give her much time to do like what she used to do when she was at elementary school. And as a mother, I really give her full right to choose what to do including what extra curricular activities to take at school. And I will always support her choice and be there when she needs me.

The five tips Dr Levine gives

Appreciate your children as they are. Don't waste time trying to create the perfect child you wish you had

Don't damage their self-esteem by criticizing their efforts too often. Don't reject them - that feeds self-hatred

Basic warmth between a parent and child - hugs, kisses, listening, words of empathy - is the first pillar of parenting

Discipline is vital. Be consistent; that helps kids develop self-control

Spend time together. Eat your evening meal together as often as possible, and involve your children in as many rituals as possible, such as worship or sport

In a way, it is similar to one proverb in Javanese “Tut Wuri Handayani”: as the parent, we just support our children from behind, and be there when they need our help: and not decide what their future will be like based on our own interest.

PT56 16.41 130806

The Patriarchal Culture

After Angie became a teenager these recent years, I recognized that she often looks uncomfortable when we are going somewhere and guys take a look at us. She often rushes me to leave a certain place when she recognizes that a guy or a group of guys take a look at us.
Some hours ago, we just had dinner in one food stall. A group of four guys sat nearby. I never give a damn to any guy looking at me. Perhaps coz I have problems with my poor eyesight (I am very lazy to wear my glasses when I am not in front of the computer) so that I don’t have a good look at people around me. I cannot recognize then whether they look at me abusively or just curiously. Therefore, it often makes me ignorant to people around when I am in public places. However, I could feel that those four guys once in a while looked at Angie and me. I could ignore it but Angie couldn’t. After we finished our meal, she directly rushed me out of the food stall to escape.
This reminds me of one article I read in Aquarini’s book—Kajian Budaya Feminis (Feminist Culture Studies). She wrote most women undergo sexual harassment in their life; be it a very “light” harassment such as ‘whistling’ until “heavy” one such as touching or rubbing some parts of women’s bodies when they are in public places. Women are often reduced only as “a pile of flesh and bones” without soul so that women easily become victims for such sexual harassment done by men. Men “wholeheartedly” feel like they have full right to do anything they like to women coz women are just “a pile of flesh and bones”; just objects. Men don’t need to feel guilty to do harassment coz they are superior. On the contrary, women who get sexual harassment often feel that something wrong in them so that they deserved to be “enjoyed” by men. Perhaps they feel that they have big breasts, big ass, or oven on the way round, skinny breasts and skinny ass. Women with big “ones” get sexual harassment while women with skinny “ones” get mockery. It is always wrong to have female bodies.
Lucky Aquarini coz she could overcome that feeling when she was young. She could convince herself that there was not anything wrong in her that made some boys abuse her. When I was in elementary school and got sexual abuse from the boys in the classroom next door, I could just run away and hide myself. Sometimes I complained to God why my breasts grew earlier than my classmates so that those boys nicknamed me, “mountain”, very ridiculous and annoying nick for me at that time.
I still brought that upbringing—that women’s bodies are the source of sin—until I found the answer in the feminism ideology, in 2003. I believe it was coz the very strong religious upbringing I got from my parents and teachers in elementary school, also from the patriarchal culture where I was raised.
I have told Angie to take it easy when there is a guy or a group of guys take a look at her greedily. There is nothing wrong in her. Something wrong is in those guys’ minds. However, Angie still acts the same.
I always dream to have a better world where men no longer consider women as sexual objects. That some women can do the similar thing—reduce men only as sexual objects—doesn’t guarantee that it has already made it equal.
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