Dear Editor,

As a youth, I would be very appreciative for this widely distributed newspaper to publish my childhood experience to the general public, among whom, I’m sure, there are other youths who may be or have been going through similar experiences.

Many a times while I was growing up, I would ask myself: What would my future be like? I had no idea, and up to now, at 18 years of age, I still don’t know.

Why? Because it seems difficult for me to imagine myself as a teacher, or a doctor, or even in my dream career as a lawyer. I had a very difficult childhood. Losing my mother, whom I was very attached to, at the age of 8, and growing up as a young lady without her warmth, without the advice of my mother during my teens, has been very challenging.

However, my father was always by my side, helping me, advising me, guiding me while I was growing up, when I didn’t have my mother at my side to advise me. It was tough for me to ask my father certain questions about girls for obvious reasons; he is a male, not a female. Nevertheless, he would seek help from female friends of his who would talk to me about what I would go through when I hit puberty.

However, with the passing of time, I realized that I had more questions that needed to be answered and the only person who could have done that was my father; after all he was going to be the one who had to buy me my personal things.

I remember I was about maybe 9 years and a half when I asked my father how I came to be. He told me everything, starting with sexual intercourse and finishing with birth. He was like my biology teacher at that time.

I know that I am not the only one who mourns the death of a loved one. Many go through the same circumstances. Some go through distinct lives, whereby they have both parents, but the parents are elsewhere and the children have to seek for herself/himself a way of maintaining themselves, have to hustle in order to get food, have to wait until the age of eighteen to get a job at some Chinese store or at the casino to get money because they want to continue to 6th form.

There are others who don’t have the difficulties some of us youngsters go through; they were born in a stable home. Several friends of mine had asked me throughout my 4th form what my plans were after graduation.

My answer was always, I don’t know. You see, while growing up I realized that every time I made plans for the future, they never occurred. My father would always tell me that if Plan A doesn’t work, then we go to Plan B, but how can I plan when I do not have a family that can financially support me?

Sincerely yours,
Ariadna Luna
[email protected]