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A Happy Fat Girl's tale of Growing Up
with Estrelia Mateo
When you are a child you always
think about what or who you’ll be when you grow up and as you grow older
you start to focus more on the details and less on the abstract notion.
When you were a kid you would probably say you wanted to be a doctor
when you grew up and as you got older you would start focus on getting
good grades and thinking about the best schools you could get into.
Growing up isn’t just about
getting older in age, it is also about taking those necessary steps into
adulthood. There are rites
of passages in every culture that person must go through to be
considered an adult in their community.
In the Hispanic culture
one of the most important events in a young woman’s life is her
Quinceañera, which is her fifteenth birthday. While most people see
it as a huge birthday party rival to that of a wedding, there are
certain ceremonies that each girl must go through to show her ascension
into womanhood. There is usually a ceremony where the young girl takes
off her shoes that represent her childhood and puts on her first pair of
high heels, which symbolizes her adulthood.
I love this ceremony the most
because I feel like it really reiterates what stepping into adulthood is
all about.
When I turned fourteen I
was looking towards my quinces with so much anticipation as a kid on
Christmas Eve. All I could think about how much fun party would be with
all my family and friends looking on as I took my steps into adulthood.
As we began the planning process everything seemed so real. From the
moment I tried on that first dress I realized that after that night I
would no longer be look at as a child but as a young woman.
The concept made me a little scared because I knew there were
certain things that were required of a young woman that I didn’t have to
do as a child. I knew I would have to act a certain way and carry myself
in a certain way.
I knew things would be different when my mom started pushing me to wear
more feminine clothes like dresses and skirts. She started giving me
tips about wearing make-up and jewelry and where before she would send
me out of the room when she was talking with her girlfriends, she began
to let me stay around for the conversation. She extended my curfew and
even talked about letting me date boys. She even gave me the dreaded sex
talk. She began to talk to me
about the importance of being a lady and having a sense of class and
decorum. She taught me that part
of being a woman is being confident in your decisions whether they are
wrong or right and to always stand up for yourself. The day of my party
came and went but the lessons about being a woman stay with me always
and when it is time to throw my daughters quince I will past on those
lessons so that I can make her first steps into womanhood as solid as
mine.
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