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octahedrite: What is one thing about you that you love?
Being able to think critically or independently. I'm grateful that even when I was a child, I didn't believe the adults around me were always right, and I questioned and resisted, even if it was mostly only safe to do so in my own head. I love that I have always been able to think for myself, in spite of the environment I grew up in; I'm grateful that being skeptical of the status quo was part of how my brain worked rather than a skill I had to learn.
I didn't always know that this was something to be grateful for. Not just because it made it difficult for me to accept the way things were around me. Not just because it alienated me. But also because, for a while I thought everyone was just choosing not to do it. I didn't think this was skill that needs to be built, I believed it's something everybody already has. Which made me very angry with them for not using it, and for the consequential harm.
Going to college and hearing people use the argument that someone's upbringing/the times they were in/their context made them think the way they did, used to make me feel unsympathetic. Because the person I am and have been was always at odds with what I was being told by my upbringing or environment. I thought that those were just excuses.
It still frustrates me, and I still can't be understanding or sympathetic about people refusing to be self-reflexive. But I've had to accept that the inclination to question and think for oneself is not universal. Not even when surrounding factors are conducive to it rather than prohibitive.
I have two niblings in my family who, I have been relieved and happy to observe, have this independent thinking inbuilt the way I had. They're growing up with parents and grandparents together, which is turning out to be a very preachy environment. And the idea of a "good" child these people have is a child with no will of its own, a dutiful doll.
The younger nibling is a preschooler and when her mother chastised her for conflicting with a cousin, she told her mother, "You scold me for getting angry, but you never scold the person who made me angry for doing the thing that made me angry." Which is so astute for her age, and so true: the way a lot of children are treated are as though they have no right to express anger or negative emotions, as those are judged as "bad" behaviour. Goddess forbid a child have boundaries! Adults treating children the way they would never treat another adult, and expecting the child to react with docility when an adult wouldn't, piss me off.
The older nibling is eight or nine and just as much of an independent thinker. He is able to please the adults while preserving his own inner self, which is a balance many grown-up Indian children (including me) struggle with or feel stifled by.
The niblings' upbringing is so narrow, with the grandparents preaching religion at them (my aunt said they're saffronising the kids, basically raising them the Indian version of fundamentalist, and what she says is true!) Their mother means well but expects them to be sweet and docile no matter what is thrown at them, which isn't healthy. They're made to study hard, and they learn and absorb quickly, but they have no storybooks. They get time to play, but they're not sent downstairs to play with other children (concern for their safety taken too far after the elder nibling got hurt playing once) so they play at home with each other. They play very well with each other, and get along beautifully, but it's still a restricted existence.
I love them and I admire how intelligent and questioning they are. They are the way they are against all odds. Because their environment and the adults around them are in no way conducive to them being the way they are.
So yeah, this is something I love in myself, and love in my niblings. At least I can believe that they'll mostly be okay. I don't have most of the storybooks I grew up with as a child, but I'm going to give them the few children's books I have left. As they grow older I'm also planning to give them books to counter the saffronisation. I'll have to hunt up my copy of Chandrabati's Ramayan to gift them, because it's an early feminist version that's critical of Rama. I know that they don't let themselves be brainwashed (I am relieved about that and admire that! Bears repeating because these are just children!) but they're still facing a constant barrage of this stuff. And at least I had storybooks to retreat into while growing up in a similar situation, but they don't. I'm glad they get a broader slice of life by going to school, and I'm very glad they have each other.
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