Tawjihi Mom
Tawjihi results came out earlier today, so my mother has been on the phone ever since asking about the results of a bunch of Tawjihi students in the family. From what I could hear, she was always disappointed at any grade less than 90 out of a 100. “Ah, ballah? 80? Mmm…yalla kwayyes kwayyes beshed 7eelo el fasl el jay.”
I gave her evil stares when she said that to the mothers of Tawjihi students. I don’t understand this need that many Jordanians have to butt in everyone’s business and evaluate their performance in school. I just don’t get it. If a person passes Tawjihi, they do so for their own good. If they don’t, it’s their bad. Why should everyone get involved and offer unnecessary advice to the mothers of these students?
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February 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Thats so true. Jordanians, ansd Arabs in general, are pretty nosey people!<br />I am glad I never made to the Tawjihi. Although I was a good student, Tawajihi would have made a mental case out of me. <br /><br />I don’t understand why it should be this cruel!<br /><br /><br />
February 8th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
It is kinda like pay back time for our moms :P they wanna do it with every one who did it to them :P </p>
<p>But as u said , Tawjihi isn’t for others to stick their noses into our lives and give advice to moms , It is only an exam and the only one that shud care is the student!! </p>
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February 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Does it relate to the concept that a mother’s value/identity is rooted in her children’s successes? It seems a mother can never rest in a ‘good’ reputation until all the kids are married and have kids, since she will get blamed if they slip up on the way. And it seems women themselves perpetuate this cycle.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It’s ingrained in our culture Tol, comparisons and competition. Ammanis revel in each others’ misery and lose sleep if the other has the better education, job, salary, opportunities, spouse with the better education, job, salary and so on.) Then it trickles down to who has the better or worse marriage, good looking or not so good looking children, whose child gets better grades, goes to the better college..the vicious cycle never ends.</p>
<p>I guess parents measure their success by their children’s success, they need to know that they’ve done a good job raising their offspring, they live for that validation. As a self-proclaimed black sheep of my family, to this day I believe that I’ve disappointed my parents because I’m not some hot-shot M.D or Engineer ( I’m an old mum and wife.) If only one of them would tell me that my choices were great, <em>great for me</em> and that they’re happy since I am, it would truly set me free.</p>
February 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Well we have two subjects out there; one is the nosey trend we have as a tradition in our society which is really bad almost like a disease.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left">The other is ‘<i>I guess parents measure their success by their children’s success</i>’ as Ana mentioned, but I believe this logical, reasonable rather it what is supposed to be, parents always want their own kids to be the most successful, most pleased, happiest…etc people in the world, I do wish for my future kids (enshallah) to be that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left">They are unrelated, nosey and envy is bad, working hard and wishing for the better for your Childs is good. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">J</span></span>
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February 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Abdullah, nothing wrong with wanting your kids to succeed. But let the adult child define success (studying art if it is their passion, rather than engineering). In my opinion, to affix ones own personal value to a child’s performance in life, puts undue pressue on the child and takes the parent off the hook for owning their own responsibilty to succeed at that life stage.<br />
February 8th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Tawjihi is not just about performance at school… it summarizes a whole culture. It represents the history of a nation, a social system, a lookout into the future! I mean for the longest time, Tawjihi decided who goes into university and who studies what. This automatically meant it decided on who will break free from the underclass, and who will stay trapped there. It decided whose retirement was takes care of… I guess people are still not aware that things have changed a bit now… it no longer has the same weight it did since the sixties all the way till the nineties and possibly till this decade.</p>
February 9th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Kinzi, am totally with you and I said nothing about studying art or engineering!! Pressuring the student is a sin if you ask me, but it’s not about forcing the adult tawjihi student to become what his parents wish him to be, it’s about raising a child who really knows what he wants and how to achieve his goals. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p>