My “Beautiful” Childhood
Naturally, children are so
curious toward something interesting in their eyes. Not only do children crave
on see, observe, touch or even swallow something – that could be dangerous in
adult perspective -, they may be interested to do many activities that their
peers, siblings, parents or even cartoon character appearing every day in their
favorite TV programs act. This natural gift of the God to try doing new things
and activities is a key role for children’s development and learning. Without
this blessed insight, no one on earth can be who they are today, as successful
businessmen, famous designer and many role they take as adults. However, some
of lazy and excessive-protective parents do not allow their children to act and
taste what they need. Of course, this will neither develop children optimally
nor support their learning as they need to.
As a child, I was not allowed by
my dad to do anything, except ngaji -
or studying my religion - and going to attend school lessons. Different from
many other friends I had, I was treated like I was a holly child, not to do any
“sin – in my dad’s eyes”, including going for hangout together with my
associates, playing music, going stroll even doing some sport activities such
as swimming, martial arts and many other body development activities. I even
had no chance to play any electronic-based games, console or toys as my child
peers did, since I had no ability to access them all. Seeing my friends playing
the games, I was only able to stare at them while holding my will to play
together with them if I could. My parents especially my dad did not realize
that time by time, I was being alienated with my peers as I had no connection
and thing to talk when I was mingling with them. We were, then, totally in a
different path of our lives. When I was growing older, I realized that it was a
very deep trench dividing our world.
It was a long period of my
childhood, that I watch no television. One day, long time ago when I was a
toddler, my dad bought a black and white television. I was – with my older
brother, maybe with my little sister – was so excited with the stuff, and we
started watching television at home, because previously when we wanted to watch
it, we had to knock our neighbor house. I know this was bothering them because
we would watch many hours in their living room. Sometimes, in Sunday or in
holidays, we could spend a full day flocking in the room just to catch our
favorite TV programs or Tom and Jerry from his CD’s.
In a short period of having
television, we spent hours watching the box until we sometimes forgot the time
of ngaji, which mad my dad so mad. No
more than a month the TV was in our house, in a moment, we knew that the
television disappeared. We vividly understood that the only person moving the
TV was my dad. Then, we had no more thing to killing our time beside ngaji,
schooling and reading some books borrowed from our school library (only a
cupboard). Once in a while, I was also going to my neighbor’s house to watch TV
even not as intense as this was before. Growing older made me so shy to go
there frequently as I started realizing that this was disturbing. More
frequently, I was spending my day after school to go catching fish in many
ditches spread in my village borders, sometimes together with my friends and in
some other solely myself. I was doing very village way of children’s activities
when my other peers are playing many more modern games that made me jealous but
have to hold for my breath.
My dad barely never picked us
going stroll for just knowing and seeing our neighborhood local attractions.
The only occasion when we could go stroll with my dad was when I angrily asked
after many months I got was rejection. While crying, I pleased him to pick me
around, and eventually he picked up to very plain museum. There was no visitor
at all, except us. I did not meet anything I’d assumed that I was totally
upset. More than that, the pleasure of the tour disappeared since after arrived
at home, my dad looked so upset to pick up us (me and my little sister). I
supposed it was because he lost some money for buying fuel.
The first time I could go to
beach was when our ngaji associates, organized by our teacher went rihlah – holiday – together in Depok
Beach, Bantul, Yogyakarta when I was in middle school. This was so pleased as
this was my first experience that maybe was so common in my friends’ life
experience. Finally!
 |
| Depok, Beach, when I was in middle school. I was so thin - the second from the left. In my left was my same-age neighbor. |
In term of daily meal, I know
that it was far from being nutritious and balanced. It was typically rice with
one or two types of vegetables that when I ate it, I had to compete with my
siblings. Sometimes, I was crying because the meal was taken by my older
sibling, leaving nothing for me - It was not enough in term of quantity nor
quality. For the protein need, we commonly obtaining it from tempe – processed
from soya beans – and egg or sometimes chicken when we got from our neighbor as
part of their ceremony meal (bancakan). A single egg should be divided into
four to six in order to make it equally spread among us in the house. It was
also happened to instant noodle. One or two serves of instant noodles should be
equally divided among us, and it was our side dish of our meal. Fruits are also
a very precious thing for us. We rarely found any fruit, and frequently, we got
it when there was a fruit season. We grab fallen fruits from our neighbors’
yards whatever they were; mangoes, rambutan, durian and many other fruits.
As a part of my way to add money
for my wallet, I would look for melinjo – a local seed in my country – to be
collected and sold. It was a little amount of money I got, but it was so
precious. I would look for it just after school, before going for catching fish
or in other day when it was in the season.
Following clothing mode was also
far beyond our reach. We usually bought a set of cloth (shirt and pants) once a
year, commonly in a moment of Ied Fitri, a special day in Islam just after
finishing a whole month fasting in Romadhon. At the rest of the whole year, we
wore any unused clothes given by our neighbors. Yeah, the clothes were so out
of style and trend of the year, and it was so not decent. We have no option
rather than wearing them due to our financial lack. I was little bit fortune as
I could got little for few competition I joined. I could buy some pairs of
clothes when my siblings had no that chance. We – his children and his wife –
knew that we were not as fortunate as our society. Our suffering was even
worse, since we always saw our dad always wore very decent suits without
understanding us. Our dad was like a king in our family and we were like his servant
in term of appearance. So, the only person at the time that looked so
prosperous was him. He got the clothes from his pupils, as he was teaching how
to recite our holly book, quran, beautifully. We know that his pupils should pay
for some money when my dad came to their residence in order to teaching them.
When people in our neighborhood
saw our house, they would probably suppose that we were a wealthy family, at
least more than enough to life. That’s true when they saw us based on the house
building and many furniture inside. It is the way our dad did revenge on what other
people had treated him when he had been growing as a child. He really wanted to
show that he was success enough and should be treated respectively. So,
everything he earned was only for him, his appearance and his way to show who he
was in our community. While being showy, he did not realize that we also needed
for the affection, love and attention. We also needed something that he was so
familiar about; decent clothes, vehicle, experience and many other things.
I also always turned in anger in
every interaction I had with my dad. This created an absence of good
communication and love between and among us, the whole family. He did not face
me and us with attention and care but always with rejection and anger. He always
rejected anything we asked for and was always angry giving us many
not-pleasured words that created us as easy firing children. We treated us each
other with the similar thing as what our dad was commonly doing: rejection,
anger, mockery, hatred and even once in a while we used our hand and feet to
punch and kick each other. Never did we communicate each other and time by
time, our home was turning to hell rather than heaven or even just a living
place in the Earth.
I always felt jealous when he
could smile warmly to his pupils coming to our residence. He always greeted
them smoothly and always treated them the best he could. Something that never
we got in our life. We knew that he could do the greatest thing to the one who
paid and give something for him. We were, meanwhile, only asking and asking anything
without fulfilling the payment. I blatantly remember that when I was still in
middle school, my dad asked me to give him back something he always gave –
money. Yeah, I just could cry deep inside my heart because I knew that I had to
give back anything I acquired from him - even only a cent – that I couldn’t at
the time. Since then, I was always thinking about how to give him back anything
he had been giving to me, including his very small attention, affection, love,
sperm and any single particle in my body. I was really trying to do anything to
collect money as much I could to give back his giving to me. I just needed to
escape from him and not become his child anymore with my money as I had paid
off anything he had given to me.
