BEFORE I BECAME ME - by Faith Onyinye Reuben

Going Down Memory LaneMy name is Amanda Chinyere. I hail from the eastern part of Nigeria, particularly Ebonyi State. I am the third child in a family of five. Though I am neither the first child nor the first daughter, my shoulders have always been laden with responsibilities far beyond my age, growth, and development.At the age of five, my parents and I relocated to Ondo State in search of greener pastures. It was there that I met a family with whom I lived for seven years.My first month with them was the best I could have ever asked for. I experienced warmth, care, and a sense of belonging that made me believe I had found a home away from home. But after that first month, I never received that warmth again.By the age of ten, I was already handling responsibilities that no child my age should have been expected to carry. At that age, I had mastered the ability to care for infants, attend to the elderly, look after the entire house, and how could I forget cook.I woke up at 4:00 a.m. every day to prepare breakfast for the entire household. Most times, despite all my efforts, I did not even get to taste the food not to talk of eating it. Yet I kept trying.No matter how early I woke up, I still found it difficult to get to school on time. It was not because I did not want to go to school. Rather, unnecessary errands and additional chores always seemed to appear at the very last minute. I would rush through them, knowing that every passing minute was taking me further away from arriving at school on time.A few times, I tried to speak up. I tried to call for help. But instead of being heard, I was called lazy. Someone even looked me in the face and told me that I was born that way simply because I was a girl child.Those words stayed with me.I was dying inside, yet I was still expected to smile.I was a child carrying responsibilities I did not understand, responsibilities I had no control over, and responsibilities that were far beyond my years. Yet nobody seemed to ask how I was coping. Nobody seemed to wonder what was happening inside the little girl who was expected to be strong every single day.What could I say? What could I do?I was only a child.And sometimes, I think about the country I know and respect so much. A country where the girl child is still too often told how she should behave, how much she should endure, and how completely she should submit.We are repeatedly told stories of how our mothers submitted completely to their fathers and husbands. We are reminded of how they endured hardship, remained silent, served their families, and carried burdens without complaint.But sometimes I wonder: if then were now, would many of our mothers still make the same decisions they made back then?Times have changed.The world has changed.And the girl child deserves the right to live, to speak, to breathe, to dream, and to become more than the responsibilities society places upon her shoulders.A girl should not have to suffer in silence simply because she was born a girl.She should not have to prove her strength by enduring everything thrown at her.She should be allowed to be a child before she is expected to become a woman.And perhaps that little girl who woke up every morning at 4:00 a.m., prepared meals, cared for others, rushed to school, and hid her tears behind a smile did not know it then but she was already learning something that would shape the woman she would become.

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