Like Father Not Daughter

My father was raised in a rural village situated by a white sandy beach on the Sumatran Island. He had made his way to the top by becoming a physician with sheer hard work and has over the years shamed me into diligence in my academic life. Having made himself wealthy from very humble beginnings, he made sure he instilled values in me that would deter me from ever looking down on people who are unfortunate.


Despite his wealth, he was very frugal when it comes to spending.

“You don’t need branded clothes or shoes when generics will do.” he always said, when we went shopping for clothes.

I would mutter rebelliously under my breath, envying my friends who got to wear branded jeans and shirts.


One of his hobbies was traveling and with his money, we really went places. In my 17 years of living under his wings, we have visited every continent except South America and Antarctica. As travelers, we didn’t get much exposure on the lifestyle of the people whose places we visited but the traveling experiences themselves have bestowed on me a precious peek into the culture, architecture and slight history of those places.


“Sports.” My father adamantly repeated to the American chap on our tour bus.

“Spots?” the man repeated. Confusion apparent on his face as he tried to make sense of what my father was saying.

“Sports, soccer, football.” My father said yet again, beginning to doubt the validity of his spoken English.

“Oh! That sport!” the man broke into relieved laughter as he finally understood my father.


I looked on the scene as quietly as possible, making a mental note in my mind of the problem associated with different accents and dialects of the English language.Henceforth I decided to adopt the American accent myself when I set foot in the United States as a junior in college.


“So did you learn any grandma today?” my father would teasingly ask me every time he picked me up from my English classes. I was probably six years old when he started to devoutly send me to every English class he could get me into. Coming from a rural village himself, he made sure I had the ultimate opportunity to excel in the area where he himself had so much trouble with. His efforts were amply rewarded when I became the only student in my school to get an A in the GCE O level; an English exam given out in England which we had to take in our final year in high school.


My father was the only birth parent I had physically throughout my childhood, stepmothers aside. Being the only child of a divorced couple I have to say I always yearned for a brother or sister I could share my troubles with. My birth mother was physically estranged from me after my father won the custody battle.


Life with my father took quite a toll on me due to my rebellious nature and his dictatorial upbringing. He was always in the right and I was always in the wrong. He advised me not to trust my friends because there is no such thing as true friends. In his opinion, friends are only there when they need something from you. I vehemently disagreed then and now, only back then, I didn’t have much choice as I was living in his house. Whenever I brought my friends over, he would engage them in an interrogation that was uncomfortable for me and my friends.


As far as father and daughter relationship goes, ours was down the drain. I was never the daughter he expected me to be and even though I love him dearly, I couldn’t bring myself to act as a normal daughter would. I think the trauma I experienced in my childhood with the first stepmother had robbed me of that special relationship between a father and a daughter. He was nervous and uncomfortable handling a daughter especially towards my adolescence and he delegated it all to my stepmother who did a really good job, only my relationship with my father was thus not well established due to gradual estrangement.


He would say I was a very difficult child, giving him grey hairs before they were even due and I would readily agree. I did give him a hard time but the blame should not be all on me for he was the adult, the parent and I was the child.


That brings us to my mother, who kept me in her heart all those years I was taken away from her. In her attempt to seal the bond between herself and her daughter, she initiated the letter writing between us that continued on up to this day. I had never met her, or at least I didn’t remember, until I was probably about seven or eight years old. No one in my family had told me how she looked like. What I heard were mostly negative and to a young child, those were hurtful for I truly longed for a fairy-like mother who could rescue me and bring me to places that would bring me extreme happiness.


I relied on my imagination as to her looks and my vague recollection of her was everything beautiful. Every night before I fell asleep, there she was, hiding in the closet above me, watching over me, protecting me from nightmares that ensued at an unusually high frequency. I remember waking up with a pillow soaked with my tears from some tearful dreams. That was the time when I was living with my first stepmother. Like Snow White’s stepmother, she was ultimately banished due to her mistreatments of me that was finally caught by my father. I was free from her only to receive a new replacement.


This new stepmother was much better, though like Cinderella, I had my shares of being treated like an unwanted stepdaughter, especially when she started having her own children. I suddenly became the outsider, the daughter of the first marriage, the failed marriage. “She’s my niece.” I remember my stepmother saying to the nurse when my brother had to go in for a suspected broken arm, which turned out to be nothing. Her palpable statement wended its way inside my young heart, increasing my self-loathing as a daughter no one wanted. I was only ten then but my childhood had provided me with many sights and sounds a normal ten year old would not have heard.


The first time I met my mother, I was probably seven or eight years old. I didn’t remember how she looked like then but what my mind and heart had conjured before was not far off the real person. She was and still is beautiful. In fact so beautiful that it made me wonder if I am truly her offspring for I don’t look anything like her, though I suppose to some endearing eyes such as my husband’s, I might.


When I was ten she gave me a book for a birthday gift. It was called the Enchanted Wood, written by Enid Blyton, probably Britain’s most acclaimed children’s author, at least then. I immediately fell in love with her work and that was how I latched on to reading like a hungry baby latching on to her mother’s breast.


What with my father’s demand that I master English as a language and my mother’s encouragement in my reading skills, I was flung into the world of reading. As I grew up, reading became my savior from loneliness. Reading became my resort from stressful times I faced at a high frequency as adolescence set in. Whenever family discord occurred I retreated into my world of secret hideaways, kid detectives, flying fairies, mischievous pixies and hideous goblins.


My father was also a religious man. He didn’t start out religious but he delved into it as I was growing up. As head of the household, he strived hard to make sure we did everything right religion wise. The process was confounding for me as I suddenly realized that I had to cover my head and act all prim and proper as a young lady would. Nevertheless I obeyed him like a meek lamb, rebelling every now and again in my own unique way, which was bewildering to him at the very most.


When I was thirteen, I was sent to a religious boarding school and I have to say that was the best thing that happened to me in my teen years. It was there that I learned how to be independent. I learned the tricks and trades of finding my way in the outside world though comparatively I’m still a timid person who would rather stay at home at all costs. Though it was supposed to instill religious values in its students, I came out unsatisfactory in the end, much to my father’s chagrin.


Time for college arrived and my father was at a loss of how to handle me for then I was mostly on my own. “Herding a pen full of goats is easier than handling a teenage daughter.” He said, turning his head away in utter defeat. I shrugged, brushing off his blatant remarks that actually sliced deep into my heart up to this day.


His future plans for me was to have me graduate from college, find a job and live at home with the family until he married me off to someone I fancy. As the first child, I figured that a lot was expected from me, especially when he actually compared me to other people’s children.

“Sarah’s now in the UK doing medicine.” He would say, silently wishing the same of his daughter.

“How can she beat you academically? You’re a doctor’s daughter!” he scolded me after finding out that I was second to a layman’s daughter.

“This is not good enough! You should have gotten better grades.” He snorted in anger at my exam papers.

“This wouldn’t get you to medical school!” he furiously yelled when I brought home my cumulative results in the final year of high school.


That was the last straw for me as I cried tears of self pity and resentment at having been reprimanded in such a way. I called my friend, tears running down my face and as he went up the stairs, he said harshly, ”Why are you crying?!”


The agony of having so much expected of me finally sparked in me a resolve to live my own life away from his reprimands and high expectations. My teenage years were filled with longing of living my own life without the constant control and criticism of my father and stepmother. It felt like they were ganging in on me and I was alone in a world I didn’t wish to be in. I waited patiently, brooding resentment and silent anger, for the day when I will be free.


The day came and I embraced it with sheer enthusiasm and relief. I was to be married. The premarital journey itself was perilous, with my father’s disapproval of my husband-to-be and my tender age. He had wanted me to finish college before embarking on the ship of marriage. I disagreed, this time vehemently and I had my way for once. Despite his disapproval and excuses, he himself knew it was the right thing to do (It’s Islamically advisable to marry a couple off rather than having them dating for a long time). Though it was hard for him to swallow, that he did, somehow managing to keep his ego intact.
He would never admit he was wrong least of all to his inferior and me being his inferior gained nothing by trying to tell him the rationale of my marriage and the reasons that prompted me to enter it at the age of nineteen.


As years passed by I gave up and relented being the one in the wrong, all the time. I accepted defeat to my father who has such a dictatorial character that his employees would scatter away when he appeared, much like mice scattering when a cat comes abounding. I feared him to some point but fear turned to resentment and resentment later turned to quiet resolve. I was stubborn as a mule and he would readily vouch for that, not really knowing what to do at that point.


However more years passed by, and he grew older, my mind matured. I began to understand his gripping control over me. His show of love when I was much younger resurfaced and I reflected on it with deeper thought and adult reasoning. I chided myself for being such a difficult child. His harsh words had penetrated my inner self and unfortunately stayed there. It somewhat affected my self esteem, which I had over the years worked on diligently. Nevertheless, a small part of me still blamed him for such a treatment but a bigger part of me forgave him as I realized that parenting is not an easy job to undertake.


Now being a parent myself, my father became a control variable by which I set my parenting techniques. I vowed not to continue the cycle of harsh rebukes and constant criticism. I modified his attempts at good parenting and added more to it, hoping for the best. Religion wise, I realized that his attempts deserved some merits but the way he implemented the control and boundaries were lacking in wisdom. I tweaked that, looking for life examples from the good Muslims around me. Done in the correct way, religion should be a way of life rather than a strict unbending set of rituals and rules that confine the mind and heart. The religion itself is a beauty to behold, but the way it is executed by some people has inexorably rendered it hideous and unappealing.


My father has also become my indirect model in life. I value and admire his determined nature and struggle to succeed though I didn’t quite fulfill his expectations of me. His pride in his humble origin also inspired me to become less nationalistic thus enabling me to mingle internationally without self restraint as I do not belong to just one culture but rather a mixture of several and that is beautiful indeed.


My father’s love for good food also played an important role in my strong affinity to vegetables which some people just couldn’t comprehend. I remember my grandmother constantly nagging me, “Eat your greens if you want to stay young looking.” I use to brush it off as being ludicrous but ultimately my vanity got the best of me and I succumbed. My father also possess an admirable spirit for trying out new things and thankfully he passed it on to me. Despite his dictatorial character, which is actually a precursor to a very strong personality, he is full of charms when he really puts himself into it. In spite of his frugality, he does give away to those who need, rather generously I must say and that entitles him to my respect. His harsh demeanor I now conclude was simply due to a lack of some aspect of social skills that he didn’t have the fortune of learning when he was growing up.


As he grows mellow, and I wiser, I have to say that my father is the reason I am who I am today. Without the downs of my childhood I would not have had the tenacity I possess as of present that actually benefits me in ways I could never have imagined. Gone was the timid girl that used to nod in agreement with any opinion. Instead, here I am with my own mind and stand and the strong resolve to change myself for the better, despite the struggle and toil I have to work myself through in order to bring about those changes.


Our past experiences shape us as a person with a potpourri of characteristics both good and bad. They shape our perceptions, our self respect and our determining factors in forming decisions. The parents who bore us and raised us when we were young and helpless deserve to be respected and obeyed as is their rightful right.