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Things I Leaned Before I Was 18

18 Lessons

By Ruth CrossPublished 6 years ago 2 min read
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Growing up, we all count on our parents to teach us. We depend on them, and sometimes, they depend on us. They teach us how to brush our teeth, how to go to the bathroom, and even if we don't realize it, they teach us how to love. They mold and shape us and we do the same, in a way, to them. Now, some of us are lucky. We are born into happy, full homes to someone who wants us, who already loves us. They have our names picked out by the first doctor visit, our nursery painted and ready before our baby shower. They wait and pray for our arrival. They will grow up feeling loved, they will grow up knowing they can do whatever they decide. But not all of us are that lucky.

Others of us are born into a world that is cold from the first positive test. The names we are given will not have been thought about and our nursery will be a glorified cardboard box, not because that's all they can afford, but because it's all they're willing to give us. We will grow up wondering what love is, wondering what we did wrong when the problem was never us to begin with. By the time I was six, I had been told I was hated more by my mother than by the bully on the playground. By seven, I had more bruises on my body than I had ever been hugged. Unfortunately, this is a story many of us children will share.

I became a woman earlier than any little girl should. By the time I was 12, I knew better than to look up or even dare speak in the presence of her. I knew exactly what to put on to cover the bruises and to hide the scars. I knew exactly what to say when a teacher got suspicious. Once I was 15, I learned what the back room was. I learned how to make my mother money and how, in her eyes, I could be worth something. When I was 16 and had my first boyfriend, I knew, or thought I knew, what a man was. I thought I knew what I was good for. I knew how to hold my tongue, how to disappear. I knew not to tell, because the cost of telling was far worse than the slim ray of hope that came from telling.

By 17, I knew the pain of losing a child. I learned that all the lessons I had been taught were wrong. I learned that I could do it on my own. I learned that fear doesn't have to control your life and that sometimes the leap of faith is worth it. By 18, I had learned what love was. I felt it for the first time. I learned that everyone is worth something and that no one should be taught the lessons that I was taught.

Now I am 19 years young and still being taught lessons every day. I am also teaching lessons to a beautiful little girl, who will know before she turns 1 that she is more loved and more beautiful than anything in the world. We teach our children then later they become the leaders of the world. This world has so much hate in it and sadness. Where we fail they need the tools to succeed. I learned 18 lessons that she will never know, and she will learn 18 lessons that every little child should.

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