Lessons I Learned Teaching in My 20s

The Price of Thick SKIN

I was raised in a culture that taught boys not to cry and taught girls to be polite no matter what.
A culture that blatantly denied the youth of their innocence—one that taught us we had no choice but to race to adulthood.
No, you can’t go through the normal course of a childhood and be a child—even if you are a child.

At social gatherings, you were expected to stand there and smile while old, fat women hurled insults at you—commenting on your weight, your hair length, and things you couldn’t change, like how you apparently do not look like anyone in the family and the genes were randomized just at your luck.

Most assume that girls had it worse, because we are a culture that glamorizes male toxicity.
Boys can do no wrong—and even if they do, they can live with it.
But girls can’t afford it. You were expected to be an obedient daughter, sister, wife—no matter who it was you were obeying, as long as it was a man.
Confusingly, you also needed to do the heavy lifting, and do it with a smile. Complain, and you’re problematic. You’re not cut out to be a woman.
As if being a woman automatically came with an eternal contract that obligated you to multitask, master everything, be the backbone of the family, and always have your needs met last.
You will always be second priority.

I sometimes think, men had it hard too.
They were taught to scrub out any shred of emotion they felt.
They were raised in diwaniyas where making fun of each other was so normalized, it became a common sport—who could make the most degrading, dehumanizing joke about the other.
You had to laugh along, even if you were the victim. Even if it was your insecurities that were center stage.
A culture that told men the louder their voice, the more suppressing it was, the tougher they were.
They were conditioned to protect their manhood at all costs—as if it were the most fragile thing in the world.
Even something as natural and pure as loving women was a threat to their masculinity.
You must be careful—if the scale is perceived to tip, you are no longer a man.

But what I know is that the common brutality both genders faced was a robbed childhood.
One that was stolen in broad daylight under the guise of building “thick skin.”
There’s nothing uglier than being tortured by people who were supposed to protect you—and being taught to believe it was for your own good.

I was recently introduced to a 4-year-old as “the one who lost his mother recently and has no one else to care for him”—right in front of him.
When the boy first entered the room, he came running in, screaming “Salaaaam!” with a big smile.
And as soon as that introduction was made, I could see the light escape his eyes. His entire body deflated, and his face settled into such a disconnected expression.
As if he had disengaged from the here and now.

I instantly recalled how I felt when I was a child and lost my mother.
How adults talked about the biggest tragedy of my life—one I didn’t fully comprehend at that age—as if it were a conversation piece.
How they talked about me as if I wasn’t standing right there.
Like my presence had no value.
Was the value of my feelings priced so low that it was a conversation starter?

I saw adults brag back and forth about how much they cared for me and what they did for me—as if they were using my pain as a step on the social ladder.

They said they felt sorry for me, but the exaggerated pity they exchanged made me feel so small.
What was wrong with me that all they saw when they looked at me was a lost cause?

When the lights turned off, it was never really about me.
It was a competition on who appeared more morally righteous among them—and I never got a prize.
Do you want to know the prize they sought?
Was that what I was worth?
Was the price of social praise at the next important gathering damaging me?
Is that a fair bargain?

As we grew older, I realized that adults justified their behavior as helping us build thick skin.
We should talk about our deepest trauma in passing conversations with anyone and everyone, because we’re supposed to be okay with it.
Because we’re tough.

Not everyone has the luxury of privacy—especially not orphans.
This is the only way to build thick skin—if we’re routinely burnt and gobble up the pain with a smile.
No one will feel sorry for us.
Pity is for the unworthy.

A small voice in my head whispers: but they pitied you, didn’t they?

We must allow others to weaponize our deepest agony, because if we protest, we are weak.
We must enable verbal abuse, because boundaries are for “pussies.”
We must always laugh and smile and be polite—because anything else would be shameful.
Now, we can’t have that, can we?

And so what if others capitalize on your trauma and score some brownie points?

So when I looked into the eyes of that 4-year-old—who was never really supported or cared for in the proper way—
Who doesn’t really understand where his mother went, or why overhearing that introduction made him feel humiliated (ugh, how big of an emotion is that for a child to conjure?)—
Even now, as adults, humiliation breaks our bones.
And they never heal back the same way.
In his eyes, I saw me.

The next time you partake in social norms and formal gatherings, question yourself.
Question everything.

We were so conditioned to accept so many unacceptable things.
It is in the hands of our generation to break the cycle of trauma—especially with children.
We must think a million times before we speak to them.
Kids are so smart and emotionally aware.
They feel and hear everything.

Be kind. Kinder than you were taught.

Please. For me and for him.