I Did Not Have a Good Childhood or Adulthood, But I Want My Children to Have Both
I did not have what I would describe as a peaceful childhood, and my adulthood was not always peaceful either. Yet one of the strongest wishes I carry today is that my children will have something different. I want them to experience a childhood filled with warmth, safety, understanding, and love. I want them to grow into adulthood without carrying unnecessary wounds from their family.
I was born in 1982 in the Cambodian countryside, only a few years after the Khmer Rouge era. At that time, my birthplace was very different from the Cambodia we know today. Water surrounded the area, roads connecting the village to the city were not available, and travelling to the city could require spending half a day on a ferry.
My parents had also experienced the suffering and uncertainty of war. My father had attended school but could not complete his education because of the war and the Khmer Rouge period. My mother had attended school for only about one year before her father stopped allowing her to continue. She could read and write a little, but she did not have the educational opportunities that many people have today.
After the Khmer Rouge period ended, people returned to their homes and tried to rebuild their lives. My father, who had lived and worked in the city before the war, eventually moved back there with his sister. My mother, my older sister, and I remained in the village for a period of time. When I was around three or four years old, my mother moved to the city to live with my father.
From around five or six years old, I began to understand that my family did not feel like the warm family I imagined a family should be. I also began helping my mother with her family business together with my older sister. Childhood was therefore not simply a period of playing and learning for me. Responsibility entered my life at a very young age.
My father was often away from home. There were difficulties and conflicts between my parents, and sometimes my sister and I became involved in situations that were too difficult for children.
I still remember one occasion when my mother asked my sister and me to walk several kilometres to my father’s office and ask him to return home. We found him in an office on an upper floor of a building near the riverside. We told him that our mother wanted him to come home. He told us to go first and said that he would come later.
We returned home without him.
When we arrived, our mother became angry and scolded us because we had not waited for our father to return with us.
Another memory remains especially strong in my mind. One night, my mother sent my sister and me to ask someone to repay a debt. We were still very young, yet we had to walk a long distance. Along the road, I accidentally stepped on a snake. I was terrified. I never told anyone about that experience until writing these words.
There were other difficult experiences and conflicts throughout my childhood and into my adulthood. Although my parents remained together, peace was often missing from our home.
Today, however, I try to look at my past differently.
My parents were also products of their time. They experienced war, fear, loss, poverty, limited education, and a violent historical period. They carried their own wounds and limitations into adulthood. Understanding this does not mean that everything they did was right. It simply helps me understand where some of their behavior came from.
Sometimes children inherit more than physical characteristics from their parents. They can also inherit patterns of communication, anger, fear, control, and relationships.
Without awareness, one generation can unknowingly pass these patterns to the next.
This realization became especially meaningful after I had children of my own.
I have two children, and I sometimes recognize patterns in my own family that remind me of my childhood. In the past, I carried anger and resentment within me. I am grateful that, despite my difficulties, I did not use physical violence against my family. This is something I consider a great blessing.
As I have learned more deeply about the Buddha’s teachings, I have also developed a greater understanding of the consequences of harmful actions. Instead of using alcohol, substances, anger, or violence to escape difficulties, I have increasingly tried to turn inward and observe what is happening within my own mind.
I have practiced Vipassana Meditation for about five years. During the first three years, my practice was not always consistent. But during the most recent year, as I gradually became more disciplined in my practice, I began experiencing greater inner peace.
One of the most meaningful changes has been my ability to become aware more quickly.
Before, I might react immediately.
Now, I can sometimes pause.
I can observe.
I can breathe.
I can recognize an emotion before allowing it to become speech or action.
This small space between feeling and reacting has become extremely valuable to me.
I cannot change my childhood.
I cannot return to the past and give my younger self the peaceful home I wished for.
But I can influence what happens in my children’s childhood.
That is where my responsibility begins.
I want my children to grow up without physical violence in their home. I want them to feel physically safe.
I also want them to grow up without unnecessary mental violence—without constant fear, humiliation, hatred, or emotional pressure. I want them to know that their feelings can be heard, their questions can be respected, and their mistakes can become opportunities to learn.
I do not expect myself to become a perfect parent. I know that I still have weaknesses, emotions, and moments when I make mistakes. But I believe awareness gives us the opportunity to change.
Recently, I have also begun sharing Mettā Bhāvanā, or loving-kindness meditation, with my family after completing my one-hour Vipassana practice. I do this with the sincere wish that peacefulness, kindness, and understanding may gradually grow within our home.
I hope that, slowly and naturally, my children will also become interested in meditation and mindfulness. I do not want to force them. I would rather allow them to see through my actions that a peaceful mind can change the way we live.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons my past has given me.
A difficult childhood does not have to become a difficult future.
A painful family history does not have to be repeated forever.
We may receive certain patterns from the generations before us, but awareness gives us the possibility of transforming them.
I cannot give my children the childhood I never had by giving them everything they want. Instead, I hope to give them something more valuable: a peaceful home, loving guidance, emotional safety, and parents who are willing to learn from their own mistakes.
I want them to remember their childhood not because it was perfect, but because they felt loved.
And when they become adults, I hope they will not need to spend their lives healing from the home in which they grew up.
Perhaps the best way I can change my family’s future is to begin with myself.
When I become more peaceful, I create more peace around me.
When I become more mindful, I respond differently.
When I understand my own suffering, I become less likely to create suffering for others.
And when I choose love instead of anger, awareness instead of reaction, and understanding instead of blame, I plant a different seed for the next generation.
My childhood cannot be rewritten.
But my children’s future is still being written.
And I hope that every peaceful thought, every gentle word, every mindful action, and every moment of loving-kindness I cultivate today will become part of the childhood and adulthood they carry with them tomorrow.
May All the children around the word enjoy The Best Childhood.
May All Adults and Oldies around the world enjoy the best Adulthood, Oldie hood of Inner Peace.
— Raksmey Koy
Art of Inner Peace
www.artofinnerpeace.com
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