GENDER DISCRIMINATION - PREFERENCE FOR A BOY CHILD

 FORBIDDEN GARDENS, UNSEEN FLOWERS

When a society prays for the birth of a son and sighs at the birth of a daughter it doesn't only discriminate against the girl child in the future, but it begins her sentence at the moment of her breath. Gender discrimination is something that people have normalized but they don't know the impact it has on the children. I was born in a family of four and I happened to be the only girl yet the first born and at that time I was dad's lovely daughter to an extent that he would take me anywhere with him, but the problem started when I was now one year old my father started preferring a boy child over a girl child. Truth be said if I was above five years, I would have said maybe my behavior had made him regret but no at that time I couldn't do anything instead I was still in my dippers what unforeseen behavior could I have portrayed by then. 

In my mother's own words, "Daughter I was so startled with the way everything just changed because I knew you were so close to his heart". When I was now five years old my mom gave birth to a boy child and things became worse to an extent that he would compare me with the little baby and one day I just thought of taking the baby away, but I failed so instead I had to carry the baby boy on my back whilst my mom had left his sight to the kitchen just for a short while. When she came back and found me piggybacking the baby she couldn't do anything but to walk slowly so that I don't panic and let the baby slip off and fall, this was my mom's worst nightmare during the day and when my father came back, she hesitated to tell him because she knew that would be gas lighting.  

All my childhood I grew up under my mom's watch and always making sure that I don't cross path with my dad, then came a time when I was now in grade five my parents took one of my cousin sisters to stay with us as their family was facing challenges with fees payment and stuff. In precise words her primary level and high school level my parents helped her with her fees until she was done so when she was now re-writing her Mathematics and English for 'O' level as she had not performed well in those subjects. At the time she had to stay with us for her tutors and thus how she got to stay with us so while staying with us on the day of her exam she asked her twin to replace her which was a suicide mission as they got caught and were put behind bars for twenty-four hours then after that the government suspended her from re-writing again for the next ten years.

You know when they say," Out of the frying pan, into the hot fire", thus the reality of life she then went to do something so shameful than ever. She started seeing an anonymous guy and my parents had the right to ask for her own safety, but she denied it until it came to my parents' notice that my mom's friend's husband is the person my sister was seeing. My father so much dejected, the only way to solve this according to him was to flog my sister and that time my mom was pregnant for my second brother who is the third born at home so as my dad was flogging my sister my mom felt pain and tried stopping my dad but thus was just fueling the fire. The situation escalated like never before and my mom got hurt at the moment she was trying to stop my dad but luckily in as much as my father was in so much anger, he managed to realize that mommy was hurt and helped her stop the minor bleeding. 

We went to sleep and the next day my dad woke up, left home for work as he was at work he saw police officers get to his workplace as a businessman he thought they had come to see him for work little did he know that they had come to arrest him. he was taken for custody and after they got to the police station thus when he was informed that my sister's mother had called and reported an act of abuse against him,  to trace the whole story as we were sleeping my sister was calling her mother to inform her of what had happened instead of the mother scrutinizing the whole situation accordingly she just focused on the abuse part and there was nothing else to be done.

My mom was deeply wounded because my cousin sister lost her father at a tender age my father tried to provide for her needs in as much as me the biological daughter I didn't get his much love to my sister he was different because that was his brother's daughter and one fact about my dad he is kind and sweet to outsiders but to you  his own family he will always put on a serious face. In order for the whole situation to be settled my family lost a lot which consist of family cars and business money as my mom had to bail-out my dad and also give some money to aunt as she was fuming so badly and thus how the family ties got to an end but here is a catch this whole situation just made my father to be more skeptical about a girl-child. No matter how much I tried I kept on being compared to other children, each and every time he would come across a situation or a story of someone who misbehaved he would come all the way home with all the anger and take it out on me. 

Believe me when I say words hurt more than being flogged but with my mother's support I never backed-off in as much as it did hurt, I grew so resistant towards his words because my mom would always say, "He is your father get used to thus the only way it will be easy for you to deal with him later because it will hurting less". I grew up with so much resentment towards my father, but I didn't want to see him get hurt nor get troubled I always had that soft spot for him. I finished my high school then proceeded for my university level and I knew he didn't trust me as at all as he always had a mindset that I would be like my sister but guess what that was never the route I had choose for myself but instead I wanted to be a rich aunt in the feature. 

I pursued my university studies till the end and thus when he started appreciating me, imagine how long and tiring the journey was but I never gave up because I always wanted to prove him wrong. Now we are in good books and there was a day I heard him say "Having a girl-child as your first born it paves way for the boys as girls mature quickly", and I was puzzled to hear that because I had never had him speak positively of me, but I was always being belittled based baseless thoughts. It true when they say, "Your thoughts have control over what you see", for him he always saw a girl-child's iniquity which blinded him from seeing my-true self and got carried away by his hatred because right now we are okay but it becomes hard for me to fully trust him because he once abandoned me when I got sick in high school and my mother had to carry out the hospital bills whilst dad didn't give out anything not even a dime. 

Dad's boy is a good boy at home even at school but here is catch he is so rebellious towards my father because he knows dad will never do anything to him and in all his childhood, he was never flogged by our father not even a single day so he behaves as he pleases towards him and this is hurting him even more as a father but it's pointless crying over spilt milk. The sapling must be gently but firmly guided while its stem is still tender; for when it grows thick and hard, it resists both care and correction. 

A world that prefers its sons starves its daughters, then wonders where the future has gone. A child is a child whether girl or boy we all deserve to be loved because you don't know who the pioneer of the family will be unless all given a chance. We need to stop celebrating the birth of a son as a 'victory' and the birth of a daughter as a 'defeat for every child's arrival is the triumph of humanity. Seeing a boy as an asset and a girl as a liability but instead they can all be assets with your full love and support. To prefer one child for their sex is to love not the soul before you, but a ghost of expectation. It fractures the family tree at its very roots but turning a sibling into a rival, and a parent into a debtor in an emotional loan that can never be repaid. 

Gender is a spectrum, not a hierarchy. In other words, "To prefer the bud over the bloom is to misunderstand the garden".

                            "Hearts before parts" ~ Ms Lavendor