Generation F. Girls Write Now

       A Gift from My Mom

       NAZERKE AKILOVA

       My mom’s strength, passion, and kindness became my main inspiration for writing this piece. Her rush for freedom and feminism became my main definition of Generation F.

      It was 11 p.m. in Almaty, Kazakhstan. My mom, fourteen years old, was trying to rub away a smudge on her little sister’s beige satin blouse. She was recalling the memory of her fifth-grade performance in front of a whole school when she wore the same lucky shirt.

      Suddenly, a rageful voice from down the hall pierced through the flashback. It was her father. She knew the sequence of events like the back of her hand. First, her mother would nervously walk on eggshells. Then he would start diminishing his wife, my grandmother. It would turn into a fight. It would turn into a standard demonstration of Kazakh male dominance. And, in a while, her mother, anxious and afraid, would run to her, saying, “Please, talk to him, he listens to you!”

      And so it went. Legs shaking, my mom went to the kitchen. And though she had dealt with this very situation before, every time was like the first. She never knew what to expect. She would have to choose her words carefully so that this highly sensitive human, this avid drunkard, would finally back away from the edge and just go to sleep. Her father thought himself a philosopher, and alcohol a way to open his chakras. He drank until he reached deep contemplation. She sat in front of him like this. She was strong and resolute, but her childhood happiness had been annihilated by responsibility. She should have been charged only with juvenile cares, anxiousness for tomorrow’s test. Instead, she had to rescue her mother from her father’s rage and battering. The oldest of five, she had to look after four sisters and get them ready for school.

      For her entire life, my mother survived while carrying a huge burden. My grandmother, too, carried a burden. Her husband constantly took “breaks” from his duties, disappearing into intoxication to find “enlightenment.” Her simple state of mind was a symbol of stupidity in his eyes. He saw her as the root of all evil. She was closed-minded in his eyes, and his dissatisfaction manifested as dark purple bruises across her face. My mother never understood what my grandmother was guilty of.

      My grandmother was a strong woman, but the tradition of patriarchy in Kazakhstan insisted that she had an inability to disagree with men. Like millions of Kazakh women before her, she was punished for his inadequacy and forced to support her family alone. She passed this quiet strength on to my mother, who became even more determined—set on changing the path for her daughters to come.

      Where my grandmother frequently gave up, exhausted from her husband’s onslaughts, my mother worked to build a wall to keep this terror at bay. She protected us from experiencing the same violence. Every horrible situation we heard about our relatives—many of which could have been prosecuted by law—was just a scary story. We have never had to see violence, oppression, or neglect. My dad had nothing but love toward my mom and his three daughters. My mom was strict and disciplined because she knew it was best for us. All three of us were raised with love and were encouraged to embrace our individuality. Even when my mother made the brave step to immigrate to the USA when I was only five years old, I tried to remember her as a real, strong woman. My mother violated the age-old Kazakh tradition of patriarchy where women are seen only as a mothers and servants. In fact, my core values are based on her reform and have become the basis for forming my own self-respect as a woman.