Feminine Puzzle

I, Bea, am the way you see me thanks to some youth workers - Diana, Bibi and Ioana. It’s also about the genetic material that makes me a writer and a youth worker that I inherited mostly from my mother. My article for International Women’s Day is a puzzle in which I don’t tell you much, I will give you something to read and draw conclusions.

A few years ago, honestly, I was ashamed of my parents just like many teenagers are. In 2017 - the year I started working on myself - I was posting the first picture with my parents on Facebook. Since then, I grew up and started posting family pictures on Christmas, when I finished high school, when they visited me in London, how I read with my mum on the train this morning and I’ll post more because I figured out they look good in pictures. This change with the pictures is a small detail in a much more complicated process.

My mum wrote about this a few weeks ago in a testimonial for a workshop for teenagers and their parents, delivered by Diana Sabo, youth worker aka superhero. I stole some bits of the testimonial, on the one hand, to show you how good my mother’s writing and on the other hand not to praise myself and so you can hear other opinions about youth workers, not just mine.

“Children are a treasure in their parents’ eyes and that’s normal. When they only have one, even more so… We have one child. A daughter. Bea.

As long as she was a kid everything went on predictably. We gave her our full attention, she developed beautifully and became a pre-teen full of dreams and hopes. That’s when we noticed that we, the parents, were not the centre of the Universe for Bea anymore. Of course, it hurt, but it is something normal and it had to happen at some point. Our only fear was for her not to get on the hands of some unfit people who would break everything we had built as parents. We let her experiment with everything she wanted. We trusted her a lot, but we kept a close eye to see where she was headed.

One day she came home and told us she’s going to the park to sing with some young people. We had no problem with that. She returned excited! We haven’t seen her so happy about something in a long time. Then she told us she’s going to sing in the Old Town with the same young people. That’s when we became alert. One day she told us she’s going to the Youth Centre, that she met a youth worker and how cool is what she is doing. She met Diana. From that moment change started. Bea was always a good kid and we were sure at the beginning she wouldn’t find anything interesting at the Centre. We said we’d let her experiment with that too. Then she started spending more time at the Centre. We asked her what was going on there. We were still scared. After a while, we asked to meet Diana too, who seemed to have completely charmed Bea. We met Diana and from that moment we could breathe freely. Bea was in good hands. Diana noticed Bea’s passion to write. We knew she had writing skills, but we didn’t know how to make her use this talent. At the Centre, with guidance from the youth workers, she started writing for DEIS. And she still does that.

At first, I was a little bothered that Bea didn’t seem as close to us as she used to and we asked her what was going on. She told me she talks a lot with Diana. Things you talk about with your friends, not with parents. I was enlightened. Diana is, actually, their older friend. A friend with a lot of experience in youth work, a friend all young people need at some point. From the moment I accepted this, everything changed. Bea started talking to us again, she was telling us what’s going on at the Centre, she started working on projects and so on. She just started blooming and became an amazing teenager and then a beautiful young adult. At the Youth Centre, she was encouraged to follow her passion for writing. We followed Diana’s initiative.”

It took me some time to understand my parents and re-learn to communicate with them after my teenage “passed”, and now I can talk openly about my parents and my relationship with them. It was a process that took a few years. It is still a process. But everything started with the youth worker that guided me to see things how they truly are. That’s what everything starts.

This story has an open, but a happy ending, and that is due to my mum - who always carefully mediated the arguments between me and dad, for example - and to the youth workers - Diana, Bibi, Ioana. And the list of extra amazing women who influenced me in time goes on with people close to me, like my grandma whose personality I appreciate to the moon and back, but also people who are less close to me: musicians - Joan Jett, Lita Ford, writers - Petronela Rotar, Cristina Nemerovschi, actresses and their characters - Allison Scagliotti as Claudia in Warehouse 13 TV series.

One day I’ll also be a woman who will (positively) influence people’s lives. I like to believe I am already such a woman as a writer on my blog and as a youth worker or simply as a friend or family member.

Now let’s have a feminist (not misandry ;) ) moment in which I wish all women an international day with self-esteem and balance. And because I like equity and equality, I also wish men the same thing because they need it too.