从《生而有罪》看如何育儿Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
这是Trevor的自传。整本书充满了睿智幽默。 不得不说, Trevor 的母亲Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah在教育方面非常成功,Trevor出生在南非, 从小生长在贫穷的环境中,最后成长为一名知名喜剧演员,主持人。Trevor走出了自己的原生环境,现在,无论是精神上还是经济上,他都获得了自由和新生。
Trevor母亲是黑人,父亲是白人,黑人和白人是不可以结婚的。 他的出生在当时的非洲是不合法的。这也是取这个书名Born A Crime的一个原因。
Where most children are proof of their parents’ love, I was the proof of their criminality.
我个人觉得Trevor之所以能最终走向独立自由,有三个原因:
语言天赋
阅读
母亲的爱与独立精神
语言天赋
Trevor部分遗传了母亲的语言天赋。 非洲被划分为很多小种族,Trevor发现语言不仅是打开人与人之间隔膜的钥匙,还能救命, 于是活学活用,跟不同种族的人说不同的语言,避免矛盾冲突。 英语在南非是贵族语言, 说英语意味着很多的便利, 于是母亲让他从出生就开始说英语。 有了语言的工具, 能融入,从而避免了被隔离。非洲的种族矛盾, 与语言的不统一有很大关系。 中国历史上统一都会统一语言, 贸易上的统一都是统一货币工具, 这些是一个道理。
阅读
阅读是Trevor精神力量的一个来源。Trevor因为出生,小时候不能出门玩,大部分时间都是自己一个人在家里,因为很无聊,也没有伙伴,于是开始阅读。
母亲的爱与独立精神
Trevor母亲是自己想要一个孩子,不是想要一个家, Trevor生父开始是不同意的, 但经过好几个月的讨论, 最后同意了。 母亲后来跟Trevor说了选择生他的原因:
I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return.
我个人的感受是, Trevor母亲想要传递爱和自由给儿子,想让自己更完整。孩子“可以百分百信赖我,我可以把我所有的爱和自由给他,让他成为他自己”。
爱分很多种, 作为中国的爸爸妈妈,习惯性的觉得爱他就是要为他好,帮他成为大家眼中的好孩子,帮他成为一个能干的律师,成功的商人,其实真正的爱是欣赏他,包容他的短处,不足。 帮他打破局限,让他体验到他可以有无限可能,让他成为他想成为的人,让他自由。
爱是什么, 母爱应该是什么样, Trevor母亲给了我们答案:
Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them.
同样很多人说可以为爱的人做任何事,但是真的是这样吗?大部分时候不是的,只有母亲可以。
People say all the time that they’d do anything for the people they love. But would you really? Would you do anything? Would you give everything? I don’t know that a child knows that kind of selfless love. A mother, yes. A mother will clutch her children and jump from a moving car to keep them from harm. She will do it without thinking.
感谢这本书,让我反省自己。作为收获,Trevor反过来给母亲创造一个新的世界, 帮助她脱离种族隔离带来的影响,走向更美好的未来。
with the progress I made and the things I learned, I came back and created a new world and a new understanding for her.
Trevor和母亲,就像战士一样,他们一起对抗这个不平等的世界。
She was my mom. She was my teammate. It had always been me and her together, me and her against the world.
母亲希望他可以不受出生, 不受肤色, 不受环境的影响, 成为想成为的任何人,去任何想去的地方, 希望他获得自由。最终Trevor做到了。
整本书讨论的重点是种族隔离,Trevor一家都是受害者, 其实不知道他们一家,所有的非洲人都是,包括统治者。
We were victims, me and my mom, Andrew and Isaac. Victims of apartheid. Victims of abuse.
Trevor母亲因为丈夫无法平等对待妻子, 总是家暴。就算家暴,Trevor母亲去警察局,警察也不立案,说这是家庭纠纷。 暴力一次次升级, 最终Trevor继父拿枪朝Trevor头部射去。好在,母亲奇迹般几乎没受伤。
整本书充满了睿智诙谐,尽管他们的生活有很多痛苦, 可是他们总是Laughing together through the pain。
最后选几个好句子一起欣赏:
1 关于授人以鱼不如授人以渔
People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.”
2 Trevor得知母亲头部中枪后哭了,心理描写很细致,排比句。得知我父亲走时候我也有过这种感受。
For a moment there was a complete vacuum of sound, and then I cried tears like I had never cried before. I collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. I cried as if every other thing I’d cried for in my life had been a waste of crying. I cried so hard that if my present crying self could go back in time and see my other crying selves, it would slap them and say, “That shit’s not worth crying for.” My cry was not a cry of sadness. It was not catharsis. It wasn’t me feeling sorry for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to express that pain in any other way, shape, or form.