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My Why: Healing My Legacy

By on May 23, 2022

By Pearl Mashour

I’m three years old, in a daycare in a new country, and I don’t speak the language. I am terrified and confused about why my mother has left me here. Mixed in with these anxiety-filled days, surrounded by other children I can’t understand, I find myself playing at the hospital where my young mother sits in the chair beside my dying father. There are Christmas decorations in the hallways. And I am left to play alone.

I realize now I was supposed to grow up quickly—no time to be a child. The white picket fence in the movies was a dream for me. It didn’t exist. As I got older, I’d learn that my beautiful mother was only 17 when she was “arranged to marry my dad.” No choice, no love, but it was the way it was back then in my country of Iran. My mother would tell me stories about how no one respected her and how my father treated her more like his caretaker than an equal partner in a loving marriage. An innocent teenage girl married to a man ten years older than her with a mean mother-in-law who was obsessed with her son, my father. Then, a year later, I was born, and that is when my father was diagnosed with leukemia.

We left Iran to go to Seattle, Washington, where my dad could get the best treatment for his cancer. Unfortunately, after a lengthy battle, my father passed away on New Year’s Eve. Christmas decorations would only make me sad and think of my hospital days for most of my life.

When mom and I returned to Iran, my grandmother—dad’s mother—had already sold our house and most of our belongings. Mom had no clue this was happening; we were left with nothing, so we moved in with my mom’s parents, and mom went back to high school.

My anxiety and fear of losing my mother were debilitating. I had already lost so much, and every time mom left the house to go to school, I would panic. I can still feel the pain in my root chakra when I think back to those days. It is deep and chronic.

After some time, my grandparents felt that the only way both my mother and I would have a successful future was if my mom married again. So this time, they arranged another marriage with a man twenty-five years older who had recently lost his wife. He had two daughters who were 10 and 12 years old. So, I moved again to live with strangers and share my mother.

Not long after, mom became pregnant. I was five years old, and although I adored my new baby brother, my stepfather created this unfair family environment where boys were the best and girls were just the extras on the side. He was very brazen about his beliefs. It put us, girls, into a competitive world where we had to work against each other to prove to my stepdad who was the better student, the neater daughter, the helpful family member, etc. It created hostility, but I didn’t let it get in between my brother and me. He was my baby brother, and I cared for him as though he was my own son. After all, it wasn’t his or my fault.

The worst part was that the Iranian revolution started just as I was beginning to adapt to this new family. One night in the middle of darkness, we left Iran and all my relatives. I had no idea if I would ever see them again. We ended up in Canada.

I learned independence at a very early age. I asked my parents if I could get a job because I wanted my own money and didn’t want to put my mom in an awkward position. So in 5th grade, I got a job delivering 180 newspapers before school at 5:30 am, even in cold Canadian winter. I was ten years old, and it became the beginning of my working life.

The unfair family environment became more extreme. The girls were all sent to a summer camp one summer, while my brother went on a fancy Greek cruise with our parents. The license plate on our family car was my brother’s name. If I took an extra class outside of school, I had to pay for it myself, although my stepdad paid for my brother. Keep in mind that my stepfather was a very wealthy man.

As we became teenagers, the turmoil between us all became intolerable. My father was so much older than my mother, and you could see how much he tried to clip her wings and control her. She was miserable. I was miserable. I couldn’t take it anymore—all the fighting and constant yelling in our household—so I asked my mom if I could move to California to live with my dad’s relatives.

Children can be everything to mothers. My mom was shocked. She had such an arduous journey raising us and trying to protect me. At that point, she admitted that she was only with her husband so that I would have a future with a father. Still, if I was so miserable and trying to run away, she realized what a lousy environment this was for us and decided it was time for a divorce. That is when the horrible custody battle began for my brother.

I moved to California without my mom, without packing up the things that I wanted to keep. I never had a chance to say goodbye to my friends; there was no closure. It’s like the 10 years of my life in Canada with my two stepsisters and stepfather didn’t exist. I lived with my uncle for 6 months until my mother & brother could join me.

When I was 16-years-old, I met my soon-to-be husband. We got married when I was 22. To this day, he is my best friend and soulmate. Ironically his birthday is on the same date my father passed away. So those horrible holiday memories that reminded me of the hospital smell and white cold lights are now replaced by love and celebration.

We have three beautiful children; two girls and one boy. As I dived into motherhood, I wanted to create a life for them that I didn’t have. The life that my poor mother was unable to give me.

I try to ensure that my kids feel equality in a positive environment amongst their siblings. I have many scrapbooks and albums to replace the emptiness I felt growing up with no childhood or old family pictures. I create beautiful memories and family time regularly because, more than anything, I realize that I still need that to feel safe and stable.

I have learned much throughout my life but realized most how unjust women’s inequality is. Had my mother been given a chance to create her destiny, her life would have been different. She is a brilliant person, and I know she would have been so successful if she could have gotten a college education and made her own plans based on her own dreams.

I blame the culture of Iran and the backward thinking that still exists today. I blame my grandparents for succumbing to it and not giving any of their daughters a chance. The wonderful news is that mom is now in a ‘love marriage.’ She finally seems truly happy.

As an adult, I still see many friends who live in gender inequality. Husbands who have the freedom to do as they please; are still the family’s patriarch. The wives are told what to wear, when they can go out, and who they can visit. The men do what they want without worrying about the children since they know the mother will care for everything. Some women know it’s not right, but far too many are blind; they don’t know any better from generation to generation.

As a 44-year-old Iranian woman living in the United States, “My Why” is to help other women break free from what society thinks they should be doing as wives, mothers, and daughters and instead help them discover their potential. To create their own best lives!

After all, I have two daughters who look up to me to teach the path of women’s empowerment for them. If I radiate self-love and self-acceptance, then in return, my children can receive this superpower, too! I am healing my legacy and setting my mother, myself, and my daughters free!

This is my why…

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Pearl Mashour is an educator, certified life coach, mother of three, and podcast host. Pearl received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine & her teaching credential from California State University of Northridge. Her podcast Female Fluence is a place where women empower women to embark on a journey of true identity and inspiration to live an authentic life. She lives in Newport Beach with her husband & three kids.

website: www.thefemalefluence.com

linkedin.com/in/femalefluence-abaa23210

instagram @femalefluence

email: femalefluence@gmail.com

podcast: you can subscribe to Female Fluence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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