My mum recently flew in for a four day pit-stop in Sydney between her commitments in South-East Asia and the US where she was presenting at another medical conference. Nothing about this is out of the ordinary for a woman who is a professor of neuroscience, but when you consider where my mother started her life it is quite extraordinary. My mum wasn’t born into a wealthy family who could afford the best education money could buy. My mum was born in a mud hut in Karachi, Pakistan. Her mother, my grandmother, was only 17 at the time and had no idea about labour or birth or what was to come; this was her first child. A call went out around the neighbourhood that she was in labour and the woman who was often called upon to deliver babies rushed over to bring my mother into the world.
My grandparents would never say that they were poor but the facts of their life reveal how hard they had it – living in a one room mud hut my grandmother had seven children in quick succession. She never got to finish high school because she was taken out early so she could be married off and taken away from the only home she knew in India to the newly formed country of Pakistan.
They could have easily been another statistic like the many millions of poor in places like Pakistan who remain caught in the vicious cycle of poverty. They didn’t because my grandmother had a belief in the power of education. Sitting here in my comfortable home “the power of education” sounds like a platitude. We take education for granted – our schools are provided to us for free by the government but despite this many spend tens of thousands to send their children to private schools. We are lucky to have that choice, to have the wealth to spend it as we choose.
For my grandmother especially, education wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity. It was the only way she knew to ensure that her children, and her children’s children, didn’t have to suffer. Education would give them the freedom to decide what they wanted to do in life.
As a result I sit here today immensely blessed. As is my mother – a high-flyer in the world of neuroscience. We are able to live the lives we do because my grandmother had a belief that could not be shaken. In her recent book, Malala Yousafzai, who is also from the country in which I was born, talks of her father’s belief in her. She says it her father’s belief propelled her to be the extraordinary young woman that she’s become. While I firmly believe in the support of a father it’s also vital that mothers push their daughters and sons to excel — not just in places like Pakistan, but here in this country, and in every country for that matter.
When I look at my own daughter growing up here in Australia, I know that even though she will have many freedoms she will take for granted, she will still need me behind her every step of the way – not only supporting her but believing in her. We all need this. Not only as daughters, but as colleagues, as employees, as friends, as sisters, as partners. We can all do with someone behind us who believes that we can do more, that we are capable of achieving more than we give ourselves credit for. This is especially important for us as women – no matter where we come from. I might not have had to struggle like my grandmother, or my mother did, but it doesn’t mean I can’t learn from it. And I hope the lesson isn’t just for me or my daughter, but is a lesson relevant for everyone.