Do not repeat the mistake!

Representative image. photo: ipsnews-net

Rokeya's mother was always complaining that there was never enough time or never enough food. It was true: her mother had to raise six children on the little that her husband -- a peasant who worked on other people's land -- brought home. And, to make matters worse, as her mother used to say, her first three children were girls so they could not help their father make a living. Rokeya, who was brought up in a remote rural village in Faridpur, has bitter childhood memories. She remembers the evenings when there was not enough food to go around, her mother complaining and her father sitting silently in a corner. She vividly remembers the days her mother took her to work at other people's houses to earn some extra money. At 14 years, Rokeya was married off and her mother advised her not to make the same mistake that she did by having so many children.
Rokeya had her first child quickly after she got married, but she never forgot her mother's words. When a family planning worker came to talk to her, she consented to take contraceptive pills. Subsequently, and in desperate need for work, the family moved to a ten square metres room with tin walls in a slum with no running water or sanitation, in downtown Dhaka. Her second son was born and a few months later she underwent a tubectomy. Her husband was always very supportive when it came to family planning matters. Now their children go to school and do well. The only thing Rokeya regrets is that in Dhaka she doesn't find trees nor the laidback life that she had in the village. But that doesn't concern her all that much, because she knows that, thanks to her efforts, her children are going to have a better life. They will be educated and, God willing, she says, her daughter will be a doctor and her son a soldier! And all of this is thanks to her mother, who was able to teach her not to make the same mistakes she made.