What Made Me Stop Holding Prejudice Against People Who Come From “Broken Families”
If you are someone whose natural reflex is to severely judge and distance yourself from people because of their general lack of mannerism and values, this bit is important for you to know.
As often as you may be seeing them, there’s a mental note made that says, “There is no way I can be friends with this person.” It is nearly impossible for you to look at them and not think, “Oh my god, who raised you?” And if you’ve studied even a little bit of psychology or have an instinctive sense about basic personality types, you can tell very easily that they were not raised in the healthiest environments, and their choices, lifestyle, and emotional intelligence reflect how their childhood was spent.
Now, it isn’t a bad thing that you can tell what place a person comes from. In fact, it can be a superpower but then if you choose to look down on them for who they are then, well, it is you who needs to update your value system.
For the longest time, I held prejudice against people who I knew (or thought) came from broken families or those that simply weren’t “raised right”. So much so that it took not one but two absolute legends to open my eyes.
The first is the woman who is a worldwide sensation and became a huge source of inspiration for me too, Kamala Harris. I was in an awe of her. Not only a headstrong world leader but also such a compassionate and gentle human being.
If there’s anything that makes people/politicians like her win, it is their ability to understand the basic human emotions and the societal values of the place they were raised in. I have no second thoughts about it and I find out that she was raised without a father. I could not express my shock.
Single mothers are heroes but to raise a girl who would then become the vice president of the United States takes something else, is what I used to think until I found out that another wildly famous personality, whom also I have deeply admired, had a bit of a childhood himself.
It wasn’t until recently that I found out that Barack Obama’s parents divorced when he was only three years old and that it took him long to understand his multiracial heritage.
I naturally took a step back and reflected and my outlook turned upside down. The “something else” that I talked about earlier in raising not only world leaders but genuinely compassionate and warm-hearted human beings is not something I’m in the capacity to describe but I sure see it now as something as normal as the upbringing of a child in any home.
While everybody’s childhood experiences are different, your home is your safe place, a place where you’re loved and it, by no means, need to match the definition of what a normal family looks like written by someone else. Because you know and I know just like people, no family is perfect.
To a conservative mind like mine who used to think most successful people in the world are raised in healthiest homes, surrounded only by positivity and love and stimulating conversations, the fact that two of the most influential people in the world were raised in a home without a father was a hard pill to swallow.
Having had an unconventional upbringing can make individuals absolutely powerful or vulnerable. While a healthy environment is important in children’s upbringing, eventually it is only what they learn throughout their lives and what they choose to expose themselves to that creates their entire identity. It is unjust to put people in boxes because of a certain impudence or maybe just bad timing of having the encounter.
I’ve come far from holding prejudices against people coming from any kind of background or community and will forever keep my heart open to making connections and empowering everyone around me.
Hope you would too!
