Here we have compared the lives of the children living in Samoan Islands to those living in Madhya Pradesh (India) during the 20th century.
Growing up in Samoa in the 1920s
The Samoan islands are part of a large group of small islands in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean.
According to the research reports on Samoan society in 1920s children did not go to school.They learnt many things like how to take care of children or do household work from older children and from adults.Fishing was a very important activity on the Islands.Young people therefore learnt to undertake long fishing expeditions.
As soon as the babies could walk , their mothers or other adults no longer looked after them. Older children , often as young as 5 years old , took over this responsibility . Both boys and girls looked after their young siblings. But , by the time a boy was about nine years old , he joined the older boys in learning outdoor jobs like fishing and planting coconuts.Girls had to continue looking after small children or do errands for adults till they were teenagers . But once they became teenagers they had much more freedom . After the age of fourteen or so , girls also went on fishing trips, worked in the plantations , learnt how to weave baskets . Cooking was done in special cooking-houses , where boys were supposed to most of the work while girls helped with the preparations.
Growing up in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s
From class 6 onwards , boys and girls went to separate schools . The girls' school was designed very different from the boys' school . They had a central courtyard where they played in total seclusion and safety from the outside world . The boys' school had no such courtyard and the playground was just a big space attached to the school . Every evening , once school was over , the boys watched as hundreds of school girls crowded the narrow streets. As these girls walked on the streets , they looked so purposeful. This was unlike the boys who used the streets as a place to stand around idling , to play , to try out tricks in with their bicycles.For the girls , the street was simply a place to get straight home . The girls also went in groups , perhaps because they also carried fears of being teased or attacked.
What do we conclude?
After reading this we realise that there are many different ways of growing up. Also, societies make clear distinctions between boys and girls.
Suggestions
We are living in the 21st century today and even today the society makes distinctions between girls and boys and this starts from a very young age . We are , for example, given different toys to play with.Toys become a way of telling children that they will have different futures when they become men and women. The difference is created in the smallest and most everyday things . How girls must dress , what games boys should play , how girls need to talk softly or boys need to be tough and the list goes on. Lets stop this discrimination today . And treat boys and girls equally . Lets understand that girls are no less than boys. Lets start giving girls equal opportunities that the boys are being given and change the world because together we can !
