Stuck in the Past | Teen Ink

Stuck in the Past

August 23, 2013
By Anonymous

Eyes shut tight. A crinkled nose. Drool escaping from the sides of the mouth that is very tenderly wiped away. Well wrapped in blankets and your arms, this gift of god. You stand there, just holding the baby in your arms, supporting its neck, rocking it, gently looking upon its beautiful face, imagining all the wondrous possibilities the world has to offer her: the prosperity she is yet to achieve, the education she is yet to attain, the little achievements she is yet to enjoy. She is capable of so much. It is safe; it is protected. It has no fear in the world… unless it’s a girl. How would it feel if someone came and took it all away? Ripped away her self esteem, drowned her in the ocean of self-loathing, erased every trace of ambition in her life. All simply because she’s a her.

This might be slightly difficult to comprehend because he is usually quite young, so it would be more appropriate to allude to someone more familiar to him. His mother. She.
She is someone who has been in his life since the very beginning. Since even before his cursèd entrance into this world. She has been there beside him, altering everything in her very existence to suit his needs, his demands, his existence. She sacrifices everything she has, enjoys, despises, dreams of, all for her child. Can the child disrespect his mother? Can he disrespect her? Can the child see someone else disrespect his mother? Can he see him disrespect her?

Not even necessarily now that she IS his mother, but even when she was younger. When she wasn’t married, and didn’t have him. Would he have liked that a dementor treat her like a dirt rag casually tossed into a putrid gutter, snatching away everything that defined her and made her into the person she was, all those years later, as his mother? The problem is, though, he doesn’t take the time to think like this.

He might say, as many other theoretically do, that mothers are manifestation of god on earth. She is a sacred and vital presence in everyone’s life. But despite saying this, the fact of the situation is that HE raped HER.

He; he could be the son she has in the future, he could also be the reason she never has a son; he could be her father in the past. He is the arrogant, ignorant, delusional, and unwelcome scum of the earth, encouraged by all those like him in society, among incompetent and sacrilegious religious leaders, among gutless and gluttonous politicians, and among the masses, who remain quiet, ready to accept this repulsive act as another in their already tragedy-laden lives. If you think this way, think again. Does she, your mother, your daughter, your wife, your sister, or would even the more commonly known ‘she’s: Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, deserve or have deserved this sort of horrendous act of not only physically damaging, but also emotionally and psychologically damaging violence done unto her? Does anyone else’s?

HE: to you, I ask, what are you afraid of? Why do you feel so incompetent and emasculated, that you feel the need to tear everything away from her? Why are you so insecure and powerless, that to regain some of your own self-esteem, you feel the need to destroy hers? What makes you so cowardly and disgraceful that you must inflict an exponentially deeper and graver wound upon her?
Is it her education? Is it her capability, her ambition, her achievement? Her ability to be just as efficacious as you, and more? Because you should know something: she is. She has to work harder than he does to attain the success that she has, toiling over countless hours, striking down every prejudice out there set up against women (and there are countless), breaking culturally and societally-set up barriers, and questioning traditionally-established rigid norms. She is capable of doing anything she wants, if she works for it. She is not subservient, she is not less deserving, and she is DEFINITELY not inferior to him.

Him. He, who bides his time resenting the world for who he is. Who never takes the blame for his unemployed and futile life, but who chooses to assign it upon those who succeed. Who is stuck in the past and its wrongful teachings, and refuses to move forward. He, who exacts his failure upon those who have worked hardest to avoid it.

Those, who were never supposed to ‘traditionally’ succeed.


The author's comments:
In a society like today, we pride ourselves in being tolerant, egalitarian, and accepting. Then why are instances like the recent Delhi and Mumbai gang rapes still happening?

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