Nina* is four years old. Barely a month after her birth, her mommy left her to grandmother, who, in turn, took care of her because Nina has two more older sisters that mommy takes care of. I didn’t ask why mommy can take care of the older two girls but can’t take care of Nina.
Some time this summer, mommy finally took Nina from grandmother and enrolled her in preschool last June. Nina is a very quiet little girl, she knows more Visayan words than Pilipino (Tagalog). She keeps to herself, plays alone and simply looks at us with expressionless eyes. She doesn’t seem to care also that her mom picks her up 2 hours after the class.
We didn’t mind. Surely, she’d open up soon enough. What got us worried and in a way frustrated is that, she always comes to school with homework undone. And then she began throwing tantrums. She cried very loudly and screamed at US, ‘I don’t like you!!!.’ Her teacher told mommy about it, but mommy justified that she got the behavior from her older cousins. Then Nina started hitting her classmates.. UNPROVOKED.
This time, teacher asked mommy to come over. Mommy admitted that Nina is her ‘least favorite child’ and that she couldn’t bring herself to love her as much as she loves the other two older girls. She reasoned that maybe because Nina was raised by grandmother.
Last month, Nina didn’t join the field trip. Her older sisters have exams and mommy is simply too busy helping them review their lessons.
I know for a fact that favoritism is common, in school, at home and even in friends. But that fact, I think, doesn’t make it less painful as it is to the least favorite..
*not real name
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