You Are the One We’ve Been Praying For II

Dziffa Akua
Jul 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Now there is nothing wrong with a first generation immigrant with responsibilities back home being risk averse. I actually encourage you be as risk averse as you can because you have a lot of responsibilities and cannot afford to mess up.

But, to deprive your child of the right to dream, the right to dare, the right to believe with every drop of blood in her body that she can be whatever she damn well pleases, and to punish that child for going the route taken by few, that’s the height of inferiority complex.

To see parents gloat at their children’s mediocre lives, children who were never given the chance to even figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, children who were told what they couldn’t be by their loved ones before the world could discourage them.

Children tainted by the scars of their parents insecurities and inabilities is the saddest of all.

Dear Ghanaian child, don’t let anyone tell you what the fact of life is. Not your brother, not your sister, not your mother, not your father, not your teacher. No one, do you hear me. Let no one tell you what the fact of life is. Listen to their experiences, learn from their mistakes, but never give them the power to dictate your path.

There is no them and us. Your beginning does not dictate your end. I grew up poor. When I say poor, I mean poor like fantasizing about food and borrowing food because you do not have money to pay.

When I say poor, I’m talking about the kind that makes a nine year old girl come to terms with the fact that her pastor molesting her was not that bad if he was going to pay for her school fees because her father was certainly not going to do it and her mom was busy giving every dime she makes to the church. That kind of poor. But see, I was nobody’s victim. Heck, I wasn’t even a victim of my environment, I still had this air of importance about me. Because I knew without a doubt that this was not my place, I did not belong here I was merely passing by and even though I did not have a clear sense of my destination, I knew this was not it.

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