Dear Mom,
It’s okay if I make a mistake. I would learn from it and grow from there. Yes, I know you love me and would hate to see me spend a second of my life in regret, but staying in your embrace and under your watchful gaze for too long may harm me. Because rather than growing a tough skin for the world out there, I’ll be cocooned in your own. I need to learn to walk, mom, so please let go of my hands and just watch me do it. I need to taste the bitter consequences of my actions, so please be prepared to watch me go through pain. I need to be the woman you would be bold enough to boast about. So allow me to bear the cross of my responsibilities.
If I understand anything about the circle of life, it is that one cannot live a life void of mistakes. One can only learn from the mistakes of others, which would serve as a guide to help them get ahead in life. Your mistakes, mom, are the lessons you teach me now that you are old. I have to make mine to be able to teach something to my little offspring.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t deliberately want to make mistakes in life, but if I do, take a deep breath, say a word of prayer, and trust that I’ll be fine. Your little girl isn’t so little anymore; trust me, she can handle a few tosses of the wind. With your words ever ringing in my ears, trust that your years of training will never be forgotten. If you ever get scared, remember that the blood of a warrior that flows through your veins flows through mine too.
From yours always,
Adanne.
EduTimes Africa, a product of Education Times Africa, is a magazine publication that aims to lend its support to close the yawning gap in Africa's educational development.
Powerful letter, sounds like the voice of many of our children trying to forge their own path. We must let them go and trust they will be just fine cause they will.
I think so too. That’s why we thought it important to dedicate a column in our magazine to the youth. People of our children’s age. To give them an opportunity to bare their minds on issues that will guide us parents in making better decisions that directly concern them. Like you rightly said, we must let go and trust we have ingrained good values in them that will guide their decisions. Thank you for reaching out. So sorry for this very late response. We had technical issues that I wasn’t even aware of.
She’s an exquisite writer with an intelligent mindset. I suggest you check out her other articles, and thank you for making her voice to he heard.