My daughter is a wonderful person. She is bright, inquisitive and has a strong personality. She got the strong personality from her dad, and I am glad that she has it because it means that she won't be pushed around. Nevertheless, she is still influenceable and that is why I would like to keep her with me. I want to teach her to love and accept everyone. I think that if she can do this, she will one day make the world a better place. She already has and is, and I want her to keep it up.
I was thinking of this yesterday morning, when my sister and my brother's girlfriend came over. (I often refer to the three of them as my sister, my brother, and my... Loretta!) So, yesterday, my sister and my Loretta came over since we were home from the cottage and since my sister is leaving today for New Jersey to go visit my parents. If you remember, my mom just had hip replacement surgery.
Yesterday morning, sitting in the kitchen drinking tea, my daughter was talking about a friend of hers from school. She wanted to show our guests pictures of this friend of hers, who is from Senegal, because one day when she brought her camera to school she and her friends had amused themselves by making funny faces at the camera. Daughter wanted to show the picture that made her laugh so hard she nearly peed her pants.
It got me thinking about all the friends my daughter has and has had, and that got me to thinking that I really dread the day she will go to Hungary to live with her dad. I don't have any problems with Hungary specifically; I am Hungarian myself, but I know that in Hungary, Daughter will be exposed to things that I would rather keep her from.
When Daughter was 18 months old, she started daycare here in Hull, QC. We had spoken mostly only Hungarian at home until then, but she took to the French language very easily and even picked up English from her little anglophone friends at the otherwise francophone daycare. She attended the same daycare for years, until we moved the family to Hungary when our youngest child was born. Daughter was five years old at the time. Among her best friends from daycare were three little girls who were black; a fact that I never noticed until we moved to Hungary. I mean, here, in Canada, no one in our circle of friends takes much notice of the color of someone's skin. We live in a country that welcomes people from all over the world. Our friends represent many different nationalities and cultures. We look at the person inside the package, not the package itself.
When we arrived in Hungary, I was reminded that it was a different kind of society. I had been exposed to racism there when I had visited, but it became much more apparent when we moved there. More specifically, I am referring to Hungarian prejudices against the local Roma population. (Roma is the politically correct term for Europe's gypsies.) Hungarians tend to think of Roma as second-class citizens. They regard them as thieves, liars, and lazy bums. Hungarians don't socialize with them, don't usually hire them and certainly don't encourage their children to play with them. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but this is the general state of things in Hungary.
When Daughter started daycare in Hungary at the age of five, there were three Roma children in her group. This had previously caused a bit of an inconvenience for the educators when it was time to have the children work in groups of two. There was always one Roma child who it was hard to find a partner for.
Enter Daughter, from Canada, who is essentially color-blind when it comes to these things. Soon after she started daycare, the educator, who was thankfully a wise and open-minded (non-prejudicial) woman, came to talk to me at the end of the day, saying what a blessing it was to have Daughter in the group. That day, when the children had split into groups of two, Daughter had seen Bianka, the lone Roma girl standing alone, and had walked over to be partners with her. It was unheard of, but Daughter was completely oblivious to this.
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the two girls. When we left our house in the morning to go to daycare, if we saw Bianka and her family walking toward the daycare, we would wait for them and walk with them. Together. I think I myself was considered a bit of an odd duck in our village. Who in her right mind would wait and walk and talk with a gypsy woman? Well, me! :o)
As we walked along, I chatted with Bianka's mother Csilla while the girls walked and chatted together. It was Csilla who pointed out to me how unusual it was to have a "white woman" walk with a gypsy. She said that it was very good of me and I of course waived it off as no big deal. It's only natural.
Eventually my marriage deteriorated to the point where I felt I had to leave my husband and at that point I moved back to Canada. Of course, I brought the kids back with me. I will skip a large chunk of the story here, skipping ahead a year and a half. In 2009, my husband, who had also moved back to Canada after us, wanted to bring the kids back to Hungary for a "visit." I knew he had no intention of returning to Canada, but he went to court and swore that he would only be gone three weeks, just so the children could visit their relatives in Hungary. The judge ordered me to hand over the children's passports so they could leave the country with him.
After the three weeks which turned into a year-long legal battle to get the children back to Canada, Daughter came back a different person. When I asked her about Bianka, she frowned, wrinkled her nose, and said that she didn't like her. She was a "gypsy", a "bad girl" and she was "stupid." I can't tell you all how much it saddened me to hear Daughter talk this way. This had been one of her best friends in Hungary, after all, only a few years before. When Daughter was in Hungary in 2009-2010, the two girls had been in the same grade three class for a year. Unfortunately, in Hungary's racists climate, Daughter had not felt that she could stay friends with Bianka. She didn't have me there walking to school with Bianka and her family, giving her the message that this was perfectly okay and good.
Luckily, as soon as Daughter returned to Canada, these racist thoughts left her completely. She is once again open and friendly with everyone. This is what I was reminded of yesterday morning when she talked about her friends from school. There was the girl from Senegal. There is also another little friend who is a Muslim, with whom Daughter discusses religion. I am so happy about this openness, so happy that so many of the books Daughter borrows from the library are about the Kho'ran and Islam, about the Titanic and 9/11, about horses and hurricanes. I do not feel threatened by this in the least. I see in this Daughter's openness to the world. I think it's great that she is interested in so many things, that she doesn't limit herself to her immediate situation.
What I am afraid of is that, under her father's influence and in the conservative atmosphere of the village where we used to live, Daughter would once again adopt the negative attitudes that are more acceptable to the people who live there. This would greatly sadden me. Although she does have a strong personality, she is also a person who wants to fit in. I think that in Canada this manifests itself as an openness to people, to their culture, their interests and their traditions. In Hungary, the opposite seems to be true. From what I have seen, Daughter would be more likely to adopt her father's snobbish attitude about being better than anyone else. I would hate to see this happen. I don't want daughter to start acting as if other people were beneath her.
I don't know what to do. I know that eventually Daughter will have her way. She will go live with her father when she is old enough to legally decide for herself. Time is just flying and I feel like my time with her is running out. I am so afraid that when that time comes, she will change and I will lose her. I will always love here because she is my baby, but it is easier to do so when she acts in a way that is deserving of love. I hate to have such a gloomy outlook, but I have seen what happened in the past. I would be saddened to see these negative ideas resurface in my wonderful daughter's open, loving heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment