The Princess Needs a Delicate Handling
She was a girl child, she was beautiful. Nani’s (Maternal grandparents) family was rejoiced. The Dadi’s (Paternal Grandparents) family was saddened. However, it hardly mattered; the parents were truly happy at her birth. She was their first child, the apple of their eye.
She smiled, she cried, she took everyone’s heart away with one look of hers. She was utterly-butterly cute.
She was tender, she was young, she was vulnerable, she was becoming beautiful day by day, and she was only twelve.
He touched her first; she avoided but did not have the courage to confide in somebody. She was scared, she was ashamed. He was a member of the family.
One day again, there was no one around. He did not stop. He went a step further.
She slapped him, and hit him with compass. She hit her Uncle. He was bleeding.
The family never got to know of the incident. She sobbed for some time and later told her mother. Tears dropped from her eyes. Her mother was stunned. She was proud of her daughter but angry with herself as well. She could not save her princess from child-abuse.
This is not just a story. Child abuse is a viral and these cases are being heard rampantly in our society. Sometimes it’s so difficult to protect our loved ones from the family members itself.
The best learning we can take from this:
- Make your child strong and independent decision maker.
- Develop a relationship of trust and faith so that you are the first one that she chooses to confide in.
- Make her over-protective and thoughtful about herself, she needs to understand and make out the difference between the good people and the bad ones.
- She should not be a meek one, let her stand up for her rights right from the tender age.
- Lastly, be watchful of her activities because let not others take advantage of her or your easy-going attitude.
A girl child, her journey is truly difficult.
Even before her birth, the grandparents, especially the Grandma prefers a baby-boy over her.
Some captured in the sonographer’s picture or pre-natal sex determination reports, fall prey to female foeticide.
When she is born, she is welcomed as the Goddess Laxmi of the house but very next moment she is reduced to being a liability, her dowry becomes a woe already.
When her brother is born, she is reduced to being a side member of the family and is made to sacrifice everything just because her baby brother can’t do without it.
She begins to grow, she flourishes, she becomes an object of fun, comments, vulgar remarks, etc. and the worst it takes the form of abuse, molest, rape. How pathetic?
And if she is lucky enough to escape it all, she can never save herself from the societal expectations.
Married or not married, why is it that only women have to go an extra mile to fulfill everyone’s expectation and then it is her who is held responsible for all that goes wrong in any one closely related to her. She is not born to take all the blames. She is an equal and deserves respect whether she wears a Saree or a Skirt.
Protection of girl child should not only be talked about, promoted, advertised because we have to restore the gender balance, but it should come from within. Don’t brag about it only to show-off among friends and family that you are absolutely fond of her, make her feel so too.
A girl child is special!!!
It’s one of the oldest saying –
A daughter is a daughter all her life.
A son is a son only till he gets his wife.
Engineer by Profession and an ABC by Passion, Manjulika Pramod would elaborate it as Artist, Blogger and a Crazy one for Books. Putting it other way round she loves to travel and write travelogues, she plays with colors to vent out her creative pangs. She is also an avid reader and out to spread the reading virus. She works with a telecom MNC and in little spare times, she reviews books and interviews authors. Manjulika has a story published in Chicken Soup for the Soul to her credit and you can catch her on her blog.