What were your dreams as a child?
Growing up through our youth, our brains are trying to figure out everything that is going on in the world. For our young infantile minds, we are not used to leaving on planet Earth as much of the rest of the humans here before us. As we grow older, we learn more and more about what it means to be a human, and the role of all our lives here on the planet.
Depending on the environment that we each are respectively raised in, there are some dramatic differences in the way that we think compared to other children in other locations in the world. But something that brings all sorts of young children together is their aspirations. There is something about lack of responsibility and freedom to think and discovering new things that the world has to offer that makes children aspire and dream more than most adults.
One common question that children are asked is what do you want to be when you grow up.Some children would say they want to be a doctor, others a teacher, or a firefighter. Some people will say they want to be rich when they grown up. While, others will say they just want a happy family with a couple of children, a dog, a cat, and maybe some chickens too. But one common element is that the children do not know what the future holds, but they have high aspirations for it. The question of, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a very important question to ask children. It reinforces in the child that they should dream big. They should continue to challenge themselves and set up a goal in mind so they create a dream to look forward to for the rest of their life.
These kind of questions are what inspired me to live the high life today. Growing up in Somalia was a tough childhood. Compared to the rest of the world, Somalian childhoods are in the bottom tenth of rough life. We had little food available, our country was always at war, we did not have much luxury as the towns are all poor, education system was broken, and crime is what controlled the cities. While this left many children growing up with poor morals, I had a very beautiful and knowledgeable mother who helped give an edge in life during the conversations that we would have with each other. I am one of those people who say their mother is their best friend. And it is she who helped shape my dreams.
The conversations with my mother went deeper than most parent child dynamics that I was aware of. My mother left my mother before I was born, so she was left raising me all by herself. She had the funds to be able to live in a hut on her own town, and she was able to raise me by herself without the help of anyone else. I think this left us bonding very early on at a young age. Since we were so close, and my mother felt bonded with her child, this left us getting to know each other very well. While I loved going to school and meeting young children my age, my favorite person to hang out with was my mother. My mother was the smartest person I knew. She understood the social skills of people and she understood language very well. She was able to help interpret for me why people act the way they do, and what it is to be a good person.
My mother was a very morally adept woman. While I loved goofing off every once in awhile, I knew from very early on what the distinguished from right and wrong, and I carried these morals with me. But, as time grew on, and my mother became older, she became very aware of the world around her as well.
My mother had me when she was 17 years old. She was young, and was very smart, but still had a lot to learn about the world. As she grew, I grew with her. She passed the knowledge that she gained in her early twenties to me when I was a toddler and a young child. I was able to help learn lessons with her as she grew up and developed into a teacher and a mother. As a very young child learning the same lessons as a twenty something year old woman, this left me very advanced for my age. I was lucky enough to have a mother who care so much about the progression of her baby, and this left me very humble.
Early on, whenever people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always told them, “I want to treat my momma to a wonderful life.”
I did not have a job in mind, nor a career. I do not think I knew what my passions were, the only thought that I had was that my momma deserved a wonderful life, and I wanted to give it to her.
From then, throughout my teens, my twenties, and to this day, everything I do is to treat my mother and be a fantastic son to her. She is my rock and I will always be a momma’s boy.