Ashes - Blog Posts

Was Kenyan a Bad Mum?

I was thinking about Ethan’s childhood and how chaotic it was. He was spoiled, could do almost everything he wanted, he had everything he asked, he questioned every concept, he was a smart ass at school…

And you ask, “why”? Because Kenyan taught him to be like this, of course. Her idea of motherhood was different from the normal; she raised Ethan as a person, not just a kid. This is why she afforded his desires, wishes, and demands—because she wanted him to live at max capacity while he didn’t have responsibilities and huge consequences to care about.

Then you think, “wow, this is wrong. This kid will grow to be a spoiled adult, thinking life works exactly as he wants; then when things go bad, he will get mad and won’t know how to fix it.”

But if we look through Kenyan’s POV, we can understand why she’d think this is okay.

Let’s check her life stage:

As you can see, Auvies take their time to do things in life; maturity and independence comes around at 40 years old. At the age she got pregnant, she was supposed to start thinking about her future and what she wanted to try (in studies and work). She was a princess, so it was half decided, but she still would need to think about what kind of authority she’d be in the future.

But then she skipped (not by her choice) 100 years of her life, had to run away (she was a sacred figure, pregnancy out of marriage wouldn’t sound good…), started a life from scratch in a strange place, had no support, and all of it with a hyperactive kid. It’s clear she wouldn’t know how to raise a child in this situation.

And her maturity wasn’t that different of a child, so she was deeply empathetic of Ethan. If he asked for something, she’d give it to him because she thought “I also wanted to have things when I was a kid, so it's only fair I give it to him”, or even “he will just have me, so I should be a thousand times better than a normal mother, and to be a better mother, I should do this and that”.

There's also her culture.

Until 12 years old, Auvies have all the right to be curious and innocent, exploring the world and not dealing with consequences. The parents should allow it, only being careful about really dangerous actions; in this case, the parents should be present to instruct, but they still couldn’t forbid the kid from doing what they want.

Ethan was at this stage, so Kenyan just followed what she knew. But, for being on Earth and hearing advice all the time about how to raise him, she started allowing consequences on Ethan’s life, so he’d know what to do and what to avoid. (Example: he can climb the tree, but if he gets afraid of heights or gets stuck, Kenyan wouldn’t save him—she’d teach him how to get down. At the end, he would know it’s not a good idea to climb again because it’s scary, but if he ever need to climb down again, he wouldn’t be powerless)

So, we can conclude that Kenyan did a great job at raising Ethan! She could have done better? Probably. But she did what she could as a solo-teen-Auvie mother raising a child.

Unfortunately, we won’t know how she would raise a teen.

She didn’t stay long enough.