By Santy Asanuma —-
As a society there must be a man or woman that young males and females would like to emulate (mesuub er tir) in their lives. It is interesting to know what young people see in elders today that enthralled (ng meksemerriar) their imagination to live like them. Melangesmad is a cultural practice promoting that young people learn at very young age to have this social skill in revering (ke dodengesii) older people who possess qualities or positions that they hope to become someday. In general, young people were expected to look up to their elders, and at the same time, to forego (obes) their own demands and expectations to give way to true and tested advice and wisdom to guide them.
This called for young people to be attentive (beiusech a mederir) to how these exemplary (ng kmal kot ngarbab el ungil) people live their lives as adults and conduct themselves in community. The young novices (rengalek el mesuub a tekoi) are to imitate them in their behaviors and conducts for the rest of their lives. And these ideal (te dermal a disech e ngelitel) people were none other than their ruktemelir (maternal uncles), rubekrir (fraternal uncles), a redelal (fraternal aunties), and bebil ra delal (maternal aunties). This practice stresses the universal value that education begins at home and the best teachers are none other than your own family members. And central to this practice are the roles being played by these life teachers.
So what are we doing with our role modeling to our youth today? Incidentally, the Mindszenty Senior Class of 2012 is studying gender-roles in their sociology class. It deals with how men and women are supposed to act, think, talk, look like (masculine or feminine), and types of work or career that society have assign to them by gender. When I asked them about taking “klab” at the taro patch, none but one student knew what I was talking about. And the shock was it was a male student. Some of the eleven girls asked if it was a night club or a glee club because that is how the word sounds. This is only a tip of an iceberg of what our young people do not know of our society or what we are not telling them.
A bigger question then should be directed at the role models if they are putting conscious effort on the type and quality of information they are transmitting to the youth. One thing was abundantly clear from the seniors…they insisted that there should be a delineation (bingel) of gender roles between the sexes. They are okay with the differences in the sexes even they are interpreted to mean inequality. One female opposed that men should not receive hot herb and spices shower for women because men do not menstruate (mo smecher ra buil). Furthermore, both male and female students shared almost identical feminine qualities (soft and lady like) they want to see in women and likewise masculine qualities (durable and strong) for men. In the discussion, both sexes wanted the man to carry the bride over the threshold and the reverse not normal.
But as reality is always the case role models are more confused with their lives today and their roles are often ignored or mixed up for even more confused reasons. Suffice it would be to say that as a society our young people have every reason to be confused than be in the right path. If they melangesmad (are looking up to your faces), what do you expect them to see in your manhood and womanhood?
