When Religion Clashes With Hair

As a kid, words of higher people in higher positions than that of yourself were the most wise and intelligent. The only opinions that the average kid could formulate at the peak of the naïve years that were occupied was that the taste of artichoke really can make you choke, 1 + 1 equals window, and that 8 pm is too early to go to bed (which is negotiable).

Then comes the age. The age where you see some armpit hair and you start to become attracted to the opposite (or same) sex. The age when you hit (drumroll)... puberty! In my opinion, this is the human's age of exploration. You begin to find yourself and certain things about your and your personality, most importantly you begin to build the foundation of your mindset and thoughts for many years to come in your life.

On a more personal level, my parents brought me up as a Jew. Period. We always kept kosher and observed holidays. I went to a Jewish school for quite some time and there was never any question as to why I couldn't eat milk with meat or why this meat isn't kosher but this one is.

Whatever my parents told me to do, I did, because I believed that my parents were always right. I never questioned their authority and when it came to religion, I always did what I was told. Because if I broke a rule, G-d would punish me. Which pretty much scared the crap out of me, so for some time I was a good girl. As I grew up, I started to really think though my practices. What's wrong with eating milk and meat? I would ask my mother and father this, my mom saying that it wasn't healthy and my dad saying that this is just the way it is. What the hell did these people know about health?

Just 300 years ago people showered only once a year (if you were a noble or king, then up to 4 times a year) 4000 years ago, according to one source, some rabbi came and said that you can't have the milk coming from a cow and the meat of a cow together, and not only can you not eat them together, but you must wait SIX HOURS to eat milk after meat and vice versa. This is an ideal that was created thousands of years ago, along with other pointless practices.

Religion was created as an answer to everything that was unexplainable for these ancient and vacuous people. Why did the sun come up every morning? The Sun god. Why did it rain today? G-d was mad at something and wants you all to suffer. It was also created as a way to unite people and keep society functioning. According to Freud, it was a way to alleviate stress. It gives people a goal and reward for doing good deeds and provides an escape route for many. But in the 21st century, technology and science has done enough to bring a theory to oppose that of Adam and Eve. Maybe humans really did come from monkeys. And maybe the old Big Bang Theory (not the tv series) is true. People back then wondered the same things we wonder now: how did the planets come about, how did people and animals become created, where did the first elements come from... although not all of this is explainable today, one day, someone will be able to explain it. And although I am a proud Jew, please don't get me wrong about that, I don't believe in all of the practices and ideals it comes with. I don't mean to bash my own religion, and I really do love it, but it was quite an adventure seeing what I think religion is about after 16 years of guidance and being told what to do.

And it's not just religion that parents try to brainwash about, I mean have your parents ever pointed out that "scary dude with the peircings and blue hair"? You'd be walking around the village and see a completely different side of people. The parallel to conformity that you are so used to. Gays and lesbians were bad. People that had peircings out of the lobe were bad. People that dyed their hair to unnatural colors were bad. People wearing chains and black were bad. It wasn't until a few years ago that I had started to ask myself why?

Did these people do anything wrong that made them so bad? Why'd my parents always tell me who was bad and look down upon people outside of the box? There comes a time where kids need to be exposed to things they've never seen before because what's life if you've only seen it from your parent's perspective?

What I had begun to realize is that my folks, and probably other parents also, don't want you to be what they see as bad. My parents can't stand peircings outside the ear lobe or colored hair, both of which I have had before. But it didn't make me a bad person. And I hate to say this, but my parents are not the only ones that say all of this. It's an entire society consisting of judgemental people that makes a person afraid to be themselves, and if they aren't, then the brave one that can actually act like themselves is the one that parents dread their children to take example of.

At around my age, kids become rebels and do exactly what their parents tell them NOT to do. And I won't lie, I've done plenty of things that my parents would probably disown me (then again, they're pretty strict) for, but I don't view myself as a child anymore. I am an opiniated adult (minus the debt and large expenses) and I am no longer a child in chains.