I read Smith College professor Ambreen Hai’s letter regarding my article on language with great interest. I always enjoy responses from readers, especially when they disagree with my pieces, because I think such interactions foster dialogue.
As a journalist, that is something very important to me. But I did feel the need to respond to some points raised in Hai’s letter that made assumptions about my background and the manner in which I relate to my daughter versus my sons. Hai objected to the fact that I call my youngest son “mera shehzaada,” or “my prince.” She raised the question of whether I called my daughter “meri shehzaadi,” implying that there was a gendered imbalance in my household based on ingrained Pakistani culture, in which boys have an exalted position in society. She based this on her experiences being raised in a middle-class Pakistani culture where parents bemoaned the birth of a daughter.
Her personal experiences, however, were not mine. I was not raised in middle-class Pakistani society. I was raised in a struggling neighborhood in Brooklyn. While there were absolutely gender imbalances in the way the larger Pakistani-American community interacted with boys and girls, in my household daughters were not seen as lesser beings. One of my earliest memories is of my father telling me that women needed to stand on their own two feet in this world, get educated and make their mark on the world.
My mother, who was raised in the middle-class Pakistani world the writer references, earned a master’s degree at a time when not many women were pursuing higher education. Her father shared my dad’s opinion on that matter. That is the culture I was raised in and the gender views I have internalized.
So, to answer the question of whether I call my daughter “meri shehzaadi,” I absolutely do. I also tell her she’s intelligent, kind and talented. I say the same to my sons. To imply that my choice of endearments is somehow tied to an internalized misogyny or unconscious bias based in my culture is an inaccurate projection of the writer’s own background.
I also disagree with the conclusion that telling my children they are my princes and princess is somehow classist. The world will always be very quick to remind my brown children of where they stand in society. But if I choose to tell them that they rule my heart, I see that as giving them a gift of love that will allow them to walk with their heads held high, confident in the knowledge that their mother sees their worth.
To criticize that word choice as misogynistic or classist is to police the language through which I express my deepest feelings for my children. And, to return to the point of my original article, I see a problem with that.
Shaheen Pasha
UMass professor