Growing Pains

I took this picture in front of a kindergarten yesterday. It says so much about this system whatever country you are in. There is a facade of freedom but the truth is, very few are truly free. I find that people here are just beginning to get the urge for it, still hesitating to think for themselves but wanting to. They embrace Western culture because of the relative freedom we enjoy. One example is their view of children. I have never seen more babies and pregnant women in my life. It seems as though that is their goal in life, but what then? Many women go off to work, leaving the baby to be cared for by grandparents. Many of the mothers to be are so young, married out of a sense of responsibility, not love. But, like a seedling fighting through the winter snow, individuality is struggling to surface. I met a woman who had been married for awhile but with no children. She felt that life was too difficult to have children, and they had made the decision to wait. It was a shock to me. I am usually looked at with surprise and pity when people find out I have been married for almost 13 years and still have no children. "WHY?" That it is our right to decide for ourselves to have or not have, is strange and as foreign as our faces. Being here is like watching an entire population growing up, trying new things and ideas, many adopted from the west and not all good. Some of it saddens me since Western culture has so many vices and those are adopted more quickly than other ideals and principles that many Westerners are taught from infancy. One day, the childlike curiosity and enthusiasm will pay its dividends in 20/20 hindsight. I understand how parents feel, never wanting their young ones to fully grow up and lose that innocence.
Mandy
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
Eleanor Roosevelt