Mother, May I?

I wrote this poem "Mother, May I?" because it was a game I used to play as a child. There is a game called “Mother, May I?” where someone plays the mother whose back is turned to the other players. The “Mother” tells a player to take a few steps, and the player must ask, “Mother, May I?” before taking any steps; if they do not then they must stay in place. It is a bit like the game “Simon Says”. I thought about how this game reflected upon my life as a young woman, and how frustrated I would feel when it seemed like there were so many rules to being a woman, particularly a South Asian Muslim woman. I felt that my male cousins and other Muslim young men I saw could be free and do what they wanted, but I could not. It seemed like the older I became, the more restrictions were put on me. As an adult, I feel that I have fought and questioned these restrictions for most of my life. I hope for a day when our daughters will not have to ask if they are allowed take part in implicit freedoms we should all have, whether we are male or female.