Parenting in Egypt: A Daughter’s Message to the World

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” – Khalil Gibran

Parents seem to believe they know more than their children do. Logically, they are older and therefore wiser. They believe their experience makes them more practical and smarter in the ways of the world. In their desire to help their children and wish them the best, they are inclined to share this “knowledge”, give them advice, or in our case, enforce it upon them.

Little do they know that when we reflect on our own lives, we often find that receiving someone else’s wisdom of their own experience is not the most helpful. We need to discover truth for ourselves and not be interrupted by others’ input.

“I don’t mind marrying – not for love. After all, marriage is one thing and love is another,” said my friend, the very same friend who is by far the most dramatic, love obsessed, individual I know.

We live in times where everyone seems to be preaching love, companionship, revolting against society’s constraints on the matter of commitment. But then the truth says quite the opposite.

Where does it all stem from?

“You are going astray. You need to pick someone from our social standards, same religious sect, preferably that boy from that family, or you would lose yourself.”

“I don’t like your girlfriend. Look at her family’s standards and where they live.”

“Love comes from familiarization, whereas those emotions you claim to have are but infatuation and do not found a future.”

This is the advice you get from parents, the very same parents that try to preach love, the very same friends that are torn between their parent’s advice and their own instinct.

“You’ve been making the same salary for a whole year. Look at my friend’s sweet boy making three times what you make. You’re either lazy or incompetent.”

“Maybe you should forget about the Master’s. Stay here and get married”

Mixed messages.

“Don’t cut your hair, a pretty woman is all about her hair.”

“If you go out with boys, you’ll end up never getting married.”

“Theater and cinema are no future for a proper girl.”

“Your girlfriend doesn’t speak French. She is not one of us.”

“We are your parents. We want what is best for you.”

“Financials are important. You need a guarantee from your partner.”

So tell me again, love?

Most of my friends that went for “smart” marriages are unhappy. Worse even, they end up justifying each affair they have. But then again, affairs are becoming more and more common, with partners in denial, no questions asked, and a perfect painting on the wall.

Perfectionism.

And we are all still figuring out who we are along the way. With parents trying hard to mold us.

“May you even listen? I am trying to say something.”

Kill the voice.

Parents need to understand that while they are the voice of wisdom, authority and discipline, we need them more than ever to be the flow of unconditional love, warmth and acceptance.

More often, parents skip the one essential step of knowing and accepting their child for who they are, for how they see and perceive the world. Which often ends in a child rebelling or losing their spirit for good.

“Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.” – Oscar Wilde

Killing one’s sense of curiosity and self-exploration.

We each see the world in a unique way and while many seem to cry for freedom, they in themselves attempt to conform and to box and label everyone and everything around them.

Will this build trust and closeness? Happiness?

One of the delights of this journey is the gift of sharing another’s world.

And at the end of the day, all we seem to do is become the spitting image of our own parents.

“Marry for love,” they said. “It will do you good,” they said.

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.” – Khalil Gibran

 

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