A LITTLE GIRL, A LITTLE MOTHER IN A FAMILY
Once I was invited to celebrate the happy event of my friend's first baby. This was a beautiful little girl, who was brought into world just a month ago. This creature began her life as many other children since they are always seen as treasured gifts from God. She looked so fragile in the adult's world with an angel's face, pure black eyes, tiny nose rosy lips, diminutive limbs and very small toes and fingers. Her appearance made me think of a pretty little doll. At that moment in time, she was so feeble, so dependent on her mother for her care and her upraising. But I knew, that like many other Vietnamese girls, she would be much different in a few years, once she had started to assimilate her culture through passive learning. After the birth of her siblings and through her mother's childrearing practices, she would grow up to be a responsible and social person as her mother was. In that way, she would start her life as she was expected to be in the future. Her gradual involvement in the Vietnamese culture would not be different from a little girl I am going to present in this essay, who was my young friend for almost six years. Hoa was a daughter of my landlord when I was studying at university; she was a four-year-old girl
People used to say "the first female girl bring more treasure to the family than any valuable property". By saying so, the mother had prepared her little girl to be responsible as a mother in the future by starting to transmit what she had learnt from her mother to her own daughter. Although still influenced by Confucianism in which the cultural value of son is still stressed, Vietnamese culture is no different from the above since the society's view of a girl, especially the first child in the family, is highly valued. I knew that it was what her mother had told her she should do and she had done it without any hesitation or reluctance. Sometime she tried to speak to him by copying her mother's gestures when she was breastfeeding the baby. I often observed Hoa playing with her baby brother, when her mother went out, by sitting next to him, smiling at him, gently touching his rosy cheeks or holding his tiny hand. Therefore, it is not a big surprise when, in many Vietnamese families, each little girl becomes a little mother in the very early stage of her life. The first few times, she was clumsy, often putting water into his eyes or covering his mouth with thick rice soup. When their parents were away for their fieldwork, Hoa took her little brother to the neighbours' house to play with her friends. Hoa took charge of looking after her brother gradually, seemingly without notice. The very first day the baby was brought home from the hospital, Hoa's mother told to her that their family now had a new member and that he was the person who needed the most care. Gradually, Hoa volunteered to give her mother a hand by bringing water to clean the baby's mouth after he was breastfed or by bringing a soft towel, baby soap or talcum powder after he was bathed. She enjoyed powdering her brother when her mother finished bathing him or observing the little kitten, as she used to call him, sucking his mother's breast. A girl is also a symbol of continuity and reproduction in Vietnamese society.
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