Letter to My Unborn Son!

Dear Son,

You’re not yet in my womb but I love you with all my heart, my dearest. I can feel your tiny warm fingers against my skin, while you sleep calmly on my lap. I could have written to your unborn sister, but I chose you because I don’t want my son, my own blood to violate a woman, to devalue her worth. I want you to be a man, a real man. When I see all these mistreatment and violence against women, my blood boils, my soul grunts. It makes me sad, angry and hopeless, and therefore my love, I want you to understand all these injustices and brutalities, hoping that you will never do this to any woman.

I shall instill one truth from the day you’re born till I breathe my last- to respect women, to give her dignity as a fellow human being, recognize her ‘self’ as a nurturer of humanity and a source of inspiration. I shall teach you how to best adore her power of feeding and nourishing the whole of human kind with her endless love; how to appreciate her beauty that lies not in a 36-24-36 size or a white fairy-princess face, or a sexist doll image, but in her supreme feminine intellect and grace. And my love, I hope to share with you my own experiences of womanhood- my hardships, my challenges that I faced and my story of struggle and sacrifices I made because I am a woman, a mother- the only beauteous truth.

Because it is crucial for you to first understand the exploitation and subordination of women to gradually prepare yourself to defy and deconstruct patriarchal values and mindsets, I shall teach you to respect each and every human being, regardless of their sex, religion, colour or cast. I shall teach you why it is essential to respect each mother, sister, wife, female classmate, teachers or any woman as much as it is to your father, brother, male teacher or classmate. By the time you’ll grow into a teenager, I shall teach you not to bow before the temptations of popular cult of disrespecting or dominating women, or devaluing them as inferior with no real capacity of reason, or worse, objectifying them into a mere pleasure of flesh.

I shall teach you not to harass woman and girls, or hurt their emotions in any ways because it is important for you to understand the very basic truth that a woman is NOT for entertainment. Please remember, physical wound alone is not the ultimate form of violence. It may manifest at a deeper psychic level, which doesn’t always have to be rape or acid attack, or trafficking or molestation. Even eve-teasing is violence. Playing with a woman’s emotions or using her body for the satiation of male desires or ego, they all amount to some sort of psychological and emotional violence, a subtle level of violence. The bruises and bleeding of such violence only devastate a woman, although it may just be entertainment for men. How could one ever seek pleasure out of someone’s pain? The world, my love, is all dark without this ‘other half.’

In near future, I hope that all families and societies in the world will have instilled in the young minds of their sons a tradition to respect women, to appreciate their worth; and not to promote such cultural values that dehumanize, brutalize, or disrespect women. I’ll give you courage to stand tall against injustices, discrimination and violence. For you my sweetheart, I envision a world where there is peace, love and respect for each human, for each being alive in this universe. And, finally I hope you’ll be a good son, brother, husband, father and above all, a good man. I pray that all the mothers could make this beautiful dream come true. God bless you with reason, courage and patience to act humanely.

With love,
Momma