Greta, Malala, And My Two Daughters
By: Ranjani Rao
Tags: Family, Parenting, Climate Change, Relationships, Beyourself

Of all the pictures and videos of Greta Thunberg that have inundated media feeds this week, I was most moved by this picture of young Greta Thunberg, starting out alone, as most visionaries and ventures, noble or otherwise, do. I sent the photo to my daughters with the unwritten caption — look what your peers are doing and achieving.

The next moment, my memory time machine kicked in and transported me to a day five years ago.

Malala Yousafzai, a seventeen-year old teenager, born a few weeks before my older daughter, had won the Nobel Peace prize. My initial amazement at Malala’s young age, maturity and courage, was soon replaced by curiosity about her parents. What exactly had they done to raise such an extraordinary child?

Malala’s news had come on the heels of a tough week of silence and sulking at home while managing the demands of a teenage daughter who inhabited an all-pervasive bubble of entitlement. I expected her to be polite at home, focus on schoolwork and get some clarity on what major to pick in college the following year.

“The kids are under a lot of stress,” another Mom with a similar teen situation had responded, in an unsuccessful attempt to reassure me. Is going to school and managing academic expectations too much for a seventeen year old? Was I pushing her too hard? What kind of support did she need? Perhaps I should back off on my demands.

With news of Malala’s Nobel Peace Prize victory, I changed my mind. Here was a girl who was the same age as my daughter, who had managed to capture the attention of the fickle, news-worshipping majority for the right reasons.

I would have loved to meet Malala. But I really wanted to meet Malala’s parents.

Mrs. Yousafzai and I must have endured similar pregnancy-related symptoms in early 1997, before each of us gave birth to a baby girl. As I juggled teething troubles and toddler tantrums with a full-time job and childcare arrangements in the safety and comfort of the San Francisco Bay area, my counterpart halfway across the world must have struggled with providing a safe environment for Malala and her siblings in the Swat valley of Pakistan.

As the years went by, I chose a private preschool and personally dropped my child to school each morning. I bought her toys and crayons. I took her to the library and read to her each night. I arranged for swimming lessons and ordered her a pink bike with training wheels when she was four. As she grew up, I accompanied her to movies and let her hang out at the mall with friends, let her have unlimited wifi access and took her to Europe one summer. I showed her the world and brought the world to her through a new laptop. After all this, I had a sullen teenager who was confused about college and thought of herself as a normal teen, no different from her peers.

Malala struggled to get to school safely, lacked an adequate supply of books and didn’t know when or if her school would reopen. She expressed outrage publicly when her right to education was in question. She wrote a blog that gave insight into the secluded society that she lived in during a time of dramatic change, one that directly impacted her present and her future. She faced the consequences of standing out and speaking up for a cause that she believed in. She switched her focus from being a doctor to becoming a politician when she understood what her people needed most was a person to influence priorities and shape their future.

I made a list of questions for Malala’s mother.