A Thousand Ways to Raise a Child

Nana and Jalil in A Thousand Splendid Suns both had their appropriate and inappropriate ways of raising Mariam. Nana was more direct with the harshness of the world while Jalil represented the cruelty of the world that hid behind a mask, as Nana would describe. Unfotunately for Mariam, she chose to believe the falsehood of Jalil's love over Nana's harsh wisdom and was cut deep by the truth. However, Mariam did learn valuable lessons from the both of them.

Jalil played with Mariam's emotions, but she always pushed them aside because she thought that he truly cared for her. He would always arrive alone in his expensive car to greet his child who was living in poverty. Mariam ignored this fact and saw Jalil almost as a superhero that brought tales of a thriving outside world. Of course, when she insisted on seeing Jalil at his house, he hid from her to hid the shame of having a ilegitimate child. Mariam then learned the hard truth of reality, especially when she returned to find her mother dead.

Nana did give wise words of wisdom to Mariam, but approached it in the wrong way. Yes, I understand that she was bitter about living away from Jalil, but that does not make her entitled to degrade her child. The degrading did make Mariam stronger towards hate later on in her life, but did not make Nana a strong motherly figure. Nana teaches Mariam the most important lesson of her life, however, to endure. Enduring is what let Mariam last so long with Rasheed and eventually leads to her freedom through death.

I can't really pick who was the better parent, Nana or Jalil, because they both were terrible yet important. Jalil did lie to Mariam and send her away, but he makes up for it in the end with his apologies and gifts. Nana did verbally abuse her daughter and put her down, but she teaches her a valuable lesson. I feel that similar situations are present in our society today. Separated parents can fight with each other over who is the better parent through insults about the other, or trying to show each other up. My brother has a friend with separated parents that insist on both throwing a birthday party for her each year. From what I hear about these parties is that each party is almost a competition between each parent on who can outdo the other. It is extremely silly, but it might teach the girl a lesson in understanding trivial fights, or encourage her to get everything she wants.