Don’t nobody kill a dream like a third world parent.
Hurts to say, but it’s true.
Last week while sharing some potential job prospects with my mom, she got really excited to hear about the offers I received. She started calculating how much money I would make and how great it could potentially be. Much to her dismay, I interrupted her with, “mi nuh plan fi work inna nobody establishment after this year still.”
She blurted out, “den Aidan, you tell me, wah u a go do!?”
Her frustration took us both by surprise and immediately triggered a simultaneous bout of laughter. She had had it with this lazy, don’t wanna work for nobody, millennialesque story that was not changing. A story that would not change, no matter how much I was or could potentially be making. I’d explain once more, to no avail, that for me it would be a less than desirable life. One which sees me living below my potential and not exploring the brunt of my capabilities. It wouldn’t be an unfortunate one by any means. I live in gratitude every Friday when I see what I get paid for what I do. I still don’t wanna do it for the rest of my working life.
I spoke to a best friend about the convo and laughing hysterically, she said, “nobody nuh kill a dream like a Caribbean parent u nuh.” And it’s true. But they’re not at fault.
It’s hard to encourage dreaming (the word itself suggests a state suspended outside of reality) in any third world setting. It starts deep in the burrows of our colonization. From the Caribbean to Asia, a confining thought was instilled that has been past on, not only genetically, but in our nurturing. A thinking that is designed to promote poverty and self limitation. A doctrine that says what sky? aim or the 2nd floor. If you aim for the second floor, you will always have food to eat and a place to live.
We forget that it was only a few generations ago that entire groups of people were not afforded the opportunities we are. The mere idea that one had any say in how their future could be molded was not afforded to our recent ancestors. For some, only 3 generations ago, were their great grandparents told where they could use a restroom and what if anything they would be allowed to eat. From rice farms to sugar cane mills, our recent family members were purposefully bread in fear. Fear systematically and very efficiently restricts freedom, least of which, the freedom of thought. For many third worlders, fear is often on the dockate for the day.
If you did not grow up in a household of creatives and/or entrepreneurs then coloring within the lines with a formal education and a “good work” were the tried and true ways to ensure your child will be able to fend for themselves. It’s the way in which so many are able to have a roof over their heads and food on the table. It’s a formula that works, so why would you expect anyone to encourage their own children to deviate from it?
The seeming lack of support third world parents may offer truly comes from a place of protection. All they want is what is best for their children, and what is best is often muddled by what is safest.
It is human nature to correlate what is safe, with what we know. If we don’t know or understand something we cannot predict its outcome and so it is branded as potentially harmful. No parent would willingly send the thing they love the most into uncharted territories. They have never been there befor and what you are asking them to do is close to unfathomable. To share a dream someone else cannot make sense of is to ask them to support your potential demise. They simply don’t see things the way you do…yet.
It can feel like a frustrating and unfair exercise, having to fight your own parents, in the already treacherous pursuit of your dreams. So don’t. Take the time to understand that their actions are in fact misaligned with their intentions. They have no intent to make you feel down, discouraged or that they don’t believe in you. In their minds they are simply trying to protect you. The things you are now trying to do are not in set with what they, their parents or their parents parents did and they can only approach you from their understanding of the world.
Resist vengefully forging your path to success, just so you can prove them wrong. Instead, make it your mission to show them that though they could not know, there is in fact a better way.
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