There’s a knock on the front door and Ayub immediately jumps up and follows Mr Ninja to open it. It’s a group of teenage boys from our neighborhood collecting donations for the community surau. I hear the following conversation from my bedroom…

Teen boy: Assalamualaikum…

Ayub: Hi! Who’s that Ayah? Hey! Where’s my pizza?!

Mr Ninja: (Says something I can’t hear)

Ayub: There’s no pizza Ayah? Where’s it?!

Teen boy: (Says something else I can’t hear)

Ayub: Mamaaaaa!!! They forgot to bring the pizza!

(Ayub runs to my room)

Me: I didn’t order pizza Ayub… We literally just ate dinner.

Ayub: Oh. Then what they doing here? I like pizza.

 

 

Ayub: Mama, I don’t want to be a man.

Me: Why not?

Ayub: I don’t want. I want to be a boy.

Me: But you’re going to grow up eventually.

Ayub: No. I don’t want to grow up. I want to be small.

Me: But when you’re a man, you don’t have to go to school anymore. You can work in an office like Ayah. Don’t you want to work in an office like Ayah..?

Ayub: …

Me: Yeah, that’s a bad example.

Ayub: At school I watch tv and eat cookies with my friends.

Me: But when you’re a man you can drive a car like Ayah. Don’t you want to drive a car?

Ayub: I don’t know how to drive.

Me: You will learn, when you’re a man.

Ayub: I don’t want to learn. Ayah can drive me.

Me: I have no further arguments. I wish I was still a small girl and didn’t have to grow up too.

Ayub: Yeah. But now you’re old.