The cleverest person in the world

The cleverest person in the world by Norman Whitney(1979)

When I found this book for the first time, I looked some pages and thought that it's like a mistety because there are some such pictures like hints.
Through reading this, I finally realized that it's an human story.

One day, there was a poor family. It was consisted by a mother, a father, and three sisters. The parents loved their daughters very much but also wanted a son. Because in the small village they lived, it was the normal that boys help their father's job to earn money and girls work at their own home to help their mother. In addition, a family of a girl who marry have to give money when she get marry. However as you realized, they have no money for that. So they wanted son to help their management.
And later that year, finally, they welcomed a boy as new family. He was named Mahmoud. They were so happy, especially his father was so much. He held a party and invited a lot of people to show his son. His wife and the eldest sister worked hard to welcome them. Other sisters were so young that they didn't help them anything. Mother was so tired to take care of the baby. So actually, the eldest sister, Fatiha worked for them mainly. After that, the mother became ill and father was busy to his work to make money. In the end, the eldest sister, Fatiha did most households. She could not enjoy her childhood at all. But she knows her parents are so happy and she have to help them. In this situation, she said.

In the days and months that followed, I worked very hard. Often I worked alone. My sister played with Mahmond They did not do much work in the house. And sometimes my mother was very tired. She could not do hard work. She was ill.
And my father did not do any work in the house. He was too busy with his tables and chairs. So I did it. But I did not worry. He was my father, and I was his daughter. He was a man, and I was a only a girl. (p.9)     

When I read these sentences, I found that it describe an old social type of gender very much. For such a rural people in this story think it's natural that boys have to work and girls have to do housework without learning as much as they want. Also Fatiha has the idea. She devoted her childhood for her family through working in her house as like little mother without asking other people to help her jobs and to let her to especially for her brother, the cleverest person in the world, Mahmond when he was a child.

I thought a lot of things after reading this part. Recently, the situation like that which is showed in this scene has been removing more than before but it still takes more time to do it completely. As you know, most people still have the idea women do house work harder than their husband or any men. In reality, in family, a mother do most house work and taking care of her children. It causes some social problem, for example, the less number of leader of women in company or government, the custom that some number of women who have jobs, when they have a baby on a way, retire their jobs and stay in their own house to take care of their self and a baby at first. However it also means that it's difficult to keep on working during and after they born their babies. Some people say women isn't useful because they take a long rest to raise children in specific period and ask them to change the work time for example to take the children to hospital. It's not flexible as employee.

As you know, there are these issues from long time ago and these days finally be getting sights. Reading books gives us such a special chance to think like this.
That's why I selected this book as my best one I read in this term.