Category: Opinion

A Daughter’s Tale

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How my mother’s mental illness shaped me

By Violet Stec 

The first time I remember feeling responsible for another person’s emotions, I was still a child. It was 2014 and I was 10 years old when my mom, Julita, burst into tears in the middle of a park. I was hanging out with my childhood best friend, Margaret. The park was a short distance from my house, and my mom and I had walked over there. I hadn’t caught wind of her mood that day—I was too excited to see Margaret. About halfway through our hangout, as we were running erratically around the park, my mom began to sob, loud and unashamed. People turned to look, and I ran to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. Margaret and I were unsure of what to do. Finally, Margaret called her mom, who arrived minutes later; our peaceful afternoon was punctured. I walked my mom home, making desperate promises of good behaviour and better grades. I was sure I had caused her outburst; I had this deep nagging feeling that I had not done enough. I had made her sad. Looking back now, I realize that for the first time I knew for certain something was wrong; my mother had some form of mental illness.

As my mother’s mental health worsened, it became my childhood responsibility to take care of her. I seemed to be the only one who could pull her out of her unpredictable moods. Having recently turned 21, I recognize how taxing this role was for me, and how deeply affected I was by my childhood experiences and complex family history.  

My childhood memories are patchy. Some moments emerge vividly, while others are barely there. I recall trying to reach out to my mom, now 47, and feeling there was a barrier keeping us apart, something I could physically feel. I could never get close enough. What I recollect the most were the empty stares, the lack of movement, the cold indifference. And then the occasional frantic energy, with so much talking I could hardly keep up. My least favourite was the whispering at night, the banging downstairs, and sometimes her leaving the house, barefoot and in her pyjamas.

I don’t remember if my grandparents, Elzbieta, now 71, and Wieslaw Stec, now 73, who lived with us, had called the police or went out to look for her. I just have an image of being ushered to bed, and by the time I woke up for school, she was home.

For most of my childhood, it was just my grandparents and me. My father, Patrick Shirley, now 60, kept very little contact with me. My mother had left him shortly after I was born, before her downward progression.

My mother is a pale woman with brown eyes, short black hair and thin eyebrows. A first-generation immigrant from Poland, she grew up in Warsaw. She came to Canada in 1988 at age 10 with her parents. They moved to Mississauga, settling in a quaint semi-detached house in a developing suburb, where they still reside.

My mother was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses over the course of her life—depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and finally, a mix of all the above: schizoaffective disorder. According to the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, it’s a combination of a mood disorder, such as bipolar, as well as schizophrenia.

My mother still has fluctuating moods and varying hallucinations. She has periods when the hallucinations become worse or better, and she also has periods of a “flat affect” when she seems not to have any emotions at all. There is no specific cause for the disorder; it can emerge as a combination of genetic factors and environmental influences. She first began having symptoms in her early twenties, but they only began to worsen after having me, possibly due to the stress of pregnancy and motherhood.

Until that day in the park, no one in the family had spoken about my mother’s condition to me. It was only after I returned home that my grandmother sat me down and told me a watered-down version of my mom’s condition.

My grandmother, Elzbieta, was born in October 1955; she is now a small, frail woman. Her curly hair, which she still colours herself at 71, is a bright red, matching my own dyed head. Her husband, Wieslaw, sports close-cropped white hair and a thin mustache.

Elzbieta stepped in as my mother for my childhood and some of my teenage years. She juggled raising me and keeping up with my mom. She describes the days before my mom was stable as jarring and unpredictable. “There were many times when she would just leave, unexpectedly in the middle of the night, and wouldn’t come home for days,” she says. “Then, just appear at the front door. I never knew where she went, or why.” This is a rough translation of Elzbieta’s words in Polish. Despite leaving Poland at age 33 and spending over 35 years in Canada, her English is still rough around the edges. When she speaks, her voice is sweet with a quiet sense of authority, like that of a teacher.

My grandfather, born February 5, 1953, was often gone. He owned a painting and wallpaper business, Willy’s Custom Painting & Wallpaper, and worked hard to make the money stretch. This left my grandmother to take care of me and all the aspects of the house, but it was my role to comfort my mother. My grandmother was a hard woman, unemotional and strict. She often didn’t know what to do with my mom’s emotional outbursts. She only knew that I could make her feel better and would often send me to check on her. I became my mother’s sole support at home.

This impacted me in many ways: from childhood, I was often awake most of the night, my stomach a pit of anxiety as I waited for something to happen. Even though my mother’s somewhat frequent disappearances stopped when I was around 16, my anxiety hasn’t lessened. I struggled greatly with depression and anxiety throughout high school; they continue today. My body remains tense, despite the relative peace that has settled in recent years.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a Dutch-American psychiatrist, author and researcher who published The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma in 2014, recognizes the amount of time it can take for true healing after a traumatic event. “The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable,” he wrote. “Each patient demands that we suspend our sense of what is normal and accept that we are dealing with a dual reality: the reality of a relatively secure and predictable present that lives side by side with a ruinous, ever-present past.” I like to think that the worst is behind me. That with my mom remaining relatively stable, I can finally move forward. But, in truth, the impacts of the past are still present in my daily challenges.

I struggle with finding my own identity, something common for people my age, but I feel uniquely behind in this process. I have never felt a strong sense of identity; I have only understood that I was meant to be there for my mother.

This lack of identity is not uncommon in children of mothers with mental illness, as American psychologist Susan Nathiel explores in her 2007 book, Daughters of Madness: Growing Up and Older with a Mentally Ill Mother.  In her interviews with adult women who have grown up with mentally ill mothers, they often talked about not understanding who they are, as that part of their personality had little time to develop because of family instability. I relate to them a lot—this sense of not knowing myself has been especially noticeable since starting university, while surrounded by so many passionate, creative and curious people. They all seem to have this inner force, this drive and knowledge of themselves that I am just now starting to grasp. Nathiel describes how our childhood experiences create our “coherent, continuous, and unified implicit sense of self.’’ Our most fundamental feelings of who we are is typically derived from a caregiver, usually a mother. Our sense of self is dependent on the connections I rarely had.

To supplement those connections, I relied on other people. In high school, I only had one or two friends at a time. I connected with them deeply and intensely. We would see each other every day, call for hours on end, and spend every waking moment around each other. This unhealthy immersion is something I still struggle with. Often, my identity becomes wrapped up in another person, similar to how I am with my mother. This intense attachment is called anxious attachment.

The concept of attachment, specifically in mother-infant relationships, was explored in 1969 by John Bowlby, a pioneering British psychologist. He examined how children can become securely or insecurely attached to their caregivers. In 1978, Dr. Mary Ainsworth, a Canadian-American developmental psychologist who observed infant behaviour, suggested that there are three kinds of attachment: secure (healthy attachment), anxious attachment (need for intense closeness) and avoidant attachment (discomfort with closeness).

In describing the core of all insecure attachments, Bowlby said: “An insecurely attached person may view the world as a dangerous place in which other people are to be treated with great caution and see himself as ineffective and unworthy of love.” This provides some insight into one of the many impacts on my psyche. The lack of stability in my childhood contributes to an intense need to connect with others, one I am just now trying to heal.

Even with the challenges resulting from my relationship with my mother, I still feel a deep sense of love and care for her. When my mother talks about her experiences and childhood, I feel compassion more than anything else.

I know my mother’s life had not been easy. She describes her childhood as neglectful. She was fed and clothed but living in Communist Poland was difficult. Money was hard to come by and her father worked often. She rarely saw him. Her mother, hardworking by nature, was not the nurturing kind. She did not enjoy staying home and taking care of her daughter; she would often yell and drink and hit her if she misbehaved.

My grandmother describes her parenting in an over-inflated way. She talks often about respect, and how lenient she considered herself as a mother in comparison to her own upbringing. Though she speaks about her mother, Nushia Jagelowicz, with warmth, she does not describe her as particularly loving. Nushia, who passed away in 2021 at age 84, was a practical woman who kept things in order and made sure everyone was fed. Much like Elzbieta, she was not the nurturing type. Elzbieta also mentions that she was often beaten with a belt by her late mother for misbehaving.

The descriptions of my great-grandmother gave me pause, as they sounded eerily similar to my mother’s childhood. This interlinking of experiences across two generations is described as intergenerational trauma, which is very applicable here. This idea describes how trauma is passed on from generation to generation, with the physical and mental impacts lingering for generations to come.

In some ways, understanding these details about my mother’s life has helped me understand my own. My childhood sometimes mirrors hers; she was extremely shy and anxious until high school. Then she branched out, which later led to long episodes of staying out all night, skipping classes, and excessive drinking. She went through a myriad of boyfriends, finally meeting my father, Partrick, when she was 19 and he was 34. Now 63, he’s short and dark-skinned, with a nearly bald head. He and my mother were together for eight years, though never married, breaking up shortly after I was born, when my mom was 27.

My mother doesn’t often talk about how they broke up. She describes it as a manic flurry. She was not aware that she wanted to leave him until one specific night. Nothing had prompted this idea; she had simply had enough. Bored and tired of living at their apartment in Etobicoke, she had never longed to go home before, but she felt like she couldn’t stay there. She called my grandparents in the middle of the night, and they picked her up from the house when I was a few months old. She never went back. Nor did she date after that; she didn’t want to go through another heartbreak.

After leaving, she moved in with my grandparents, and as her mental illness spiralled, she became unable to work. She successfully applied for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), and continues to receive disability cheques today. She never moved out, and her illness waxes and wanes over time.

Schizoaffective disorder is extremely complex. The hallucinations and mood fluctuations make it difficult for my mother to have a regular life at times, during which she needs my support. There may never be a time where she fully comes back to herself, though she has improved in the last four years. She struggles daily but has come a long way since my childhood.

Despite the difficulties, I choose to remain positive, and I like to look at my experiences as something to learn from. A quote in The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity, a 1975 book by Mark Vonnegut, son of the famous writer Kurt Vonnegut, that stood out for me humanizes this complex disorder. Living with schizophrenia himself, he says: “As well as being one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, schizophrenia can also be one of the richest learning and humanizing experiences life offers.” I like this idea—that for everything taken away by the illness, something is given back; there is something to be gleaned from understanding the complexity of the illness. My experiences with my mother have prompted a lot of introspection and have fundamentally shaped who I am.

I am still a person who takes on too much responsibility with ease, and enjoys being someone’s comfort. However, I do think that adopting that role with my mother shaped me in many positive ways. My mother has always been extremely empathetic and always tries to understand and relate to others intimately, which I think she has passed down to me. She has made me a more caring and resilient person, and our relationship has improved over the years.

Our relationship is unconventional at best. But I think that because of this, now we are both forced to forge a bond that most people never need to work on quite so diligently. I feel I understand her a little bit better with each day, and I feel that our relationship has improved because now we get the privilege of getting to know each other again. What we missed when I was a child still has a chance of being rebuilt now. Even my interview with her for this article was a connecting experience. She was happy to share about her life, and the impact I had on her. She describes me being born: “You changed my life completely. You made me more conscious, more appreciative of the life I had been given. You were my reminder that there is still joy.” I think that we both played such an important role in each other’s lives and always will.

With all the challenges she faced, she did the best she could with what she was given. And now I, too, am doing the best I can. In 2026, I am in therapy at least once a week, and I am learning that healing is the rich dynamic between understanding what came before me and how I exist within it. My hope for the future is that I will be able to remember the past with true compassion and curiosity and understand myself enough to not let any dynamic rule my life in the same way.

 Violet can be reached at stecviolet@gmail.com 

A Statue of Limitations

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When an imposing Hindu statue was erected in Brampton, Ontario in September 2025, it aroused feelings of pride in some, anger in others.

By Sandhya Maharaj

The first thing I noticed was its height.

A towering statue stood hidden beneath a large red sheet, swaying gently in the cool September 6 breeze on the grounds of Brampton’s Hindu temple, Bhavani Shankar Mandir. A wide concrete courtyard, built to hold the statue, was filled with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Some leaned forward while others held their phones high above their heads, waiting for the moment the covering would fall.

Protective black metal fencing framed the statue’s base, sunlight glinting off a plaque proudly listing the names of the bronze, silver, gold, and platinum sponsors who had helped bring Pandit Hardat Ashwar’s vision to life. To the left, a stage faced opposite the entrance of the temple, its doors opening and shutting as visitors rushed to join the congregation. Sitting in the front row was Brampton’s mayor, Patrick Brown, and other city officials, present to mark the occasion alongside the Hindu community.

Ashwar, 47, the head priest and founder of Bhavani Shankar Mandir, stood at the front of the fenced base, taking in the scene he had imagined for years. Earlier that afternoon, at 1:30, over 300 people walked the streets of Brampton in a procession, making their way from Castlebrooke Secondary School to the temple. The half-hour walk was filled with music and singing, as bright orange flags waved high in the wind. Though the temperature hovered around 18° C, the wind made the afternoon feel much cooler, but the chill did nothing to slow the excitement of those parading down The Gore Road.

As they made their way onto the temple grounds, attendees were met with the sound of pounding drums, volunteers offering free snacks and water, and even more attendees awaiting the unveiling—a steady flow that would eventually reach nearly ten thousand people, according to Ashwar. I slipped toward the back of the crowd, finding a spot that gave me a comfortable, unobstructed view of the main attraction.

“I always dreamt of the day I would block off the roads in Brampton,” Ashwar said. “I always thought it would be cool to get the police to lead the Hindus in a yatra, in a pilgrimage. I always thought it would be cool to have the [Minister of International Trade], Maninder Sidhu, with us today. And I always thought it would be amazing to have all of you with us today.”

The red sheet began to fall as two drones flying above released pink rose petals, showering the fully revealed 54-foot-tall Shiva statue—a Hindu deity understood to be the creator and destroyer. The crowd erupted into chants of “Har Har Mahadev,” a famous invocation meaning “Hail Shiva,” praising the Hindu god.

Ashwar had first established Bhavani Shankar Mandir as a Hindu temple in 2007, starting in a small unit on Melanie Drive on the east side of Brampton; as more people began attending, he quickly realized the temple needed a larger space. 

“The community was growing,” he said. “We didn’t have the space to conduct classes or the facilities for [worship].”

In February 2016, the temple relocated to its current location on Nexus Avenue. From a modest 4,000-square-foot unit to 3.5 acres of land, Bhavani Shankar Mandir’s expansion reached its dramatic peak with the unveiling of the Shiva statue.

But even as thousands gathered to celebrate what felt like a triumph of visibility, the unveiling of the Hindu monument sparked online criticism, exposing tensions in Canada’s multicultural landscape. While some saw it as a display of cultural pride, others questioned its place in North America.

It was a historic moment for Canada’s Hindu community, particularly the Guyanese Hindus who had supported Bhavani Shankar Mandir since its humble beginnings nearly two decades earlier. Built by what Ashwar described as a largely Guyanese following, the Sunday morning congregation was often made up of Guyanese and some Trinidadian Hindus (Indo-Caribbeans). Since moving to a larger site, however, it also drew regular visitors from East Indian and Sri Lankan communities.

For many, the inauguration offered a moment of resilience and pride; a reminder, Ashwar said, “when ordinary people come together, they can do extraordinary things.”

The celebration brought together a diverse assembly, with the Hindu community at the forefront, highlighting the strength of the GTA’s broader Indo-Caribbean population. According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 Census, this community of roughly 7,010 is comprised of Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and others. 

“This is a venue that will bring people together – North Indians, South Indians, Indo-Caribbeans, Sri Lankans, people from all backgrounds,” Ashwar said. 

Videos posted on TikTok and Instagram were meant to highlight the event and the statue, but amid a supportive surge of comments, a steady stream of hate emerged. Some people expressed their unease with a Hindu statue being publicly showcased in what they believed was a Christian country, as well as their expectation for immigrants to assimilate.

On October 16, just over a month after the grand inauguration, TikTok content creator Ayushi Singhal posted a 17-second video publicizing “Ontario’s hidden gem”—the tallest Mahadev statue, referring to Shiva by one of his many epithets, meaning “Great God.” Her video caught the attention of over eighty thousand viewers and attracted more than 1,700 comments, including praise and criticism.

Among the wave of responses, @sneakysnowback (real name unknown) argued that immigrants should conform to their host country: “You’re supposed to assimilate into the country that let you in, not change it into the country you’re trying to get away from.”

But what is assimilation? Founder of the Hindu Lifestyle platform and first-generation Indo-Caribbean Canadian, Shawn Binda, found it difficult to answer this question as he reflected on a conversation he had earlier in the year on X (formerly Twitter).

“There was a video circulating [online] of Hindus publicly performing puja,” Binda said, showing visible disappointment. An X user had commented that acts of puja, a form of worship where a physical representation of Hindu gods are honoured with offerings of flowers and fruits, did not align with the Canadian identity, and that Hindus needed to assimilate. “I wrote back, ‘What does it mean to assimilate? I am Hindu. I was born and raised in Canada. I went to a Catholic school. I celebrate Christmas. And last year, Halloween fell on Diwali,’” his voice exasperated. “My family performed Diwali puja that day, and then I took my kids trick-or-treating [in the evening]. Are you going to tell me I did not assimilate? What does assimilation mean for you?’”

Comments like these dismiss a fundamental part of Canadian identity. In section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—freedom of religion—every person has the right to hold and express their own beliefs, and to participate in religious practices publicly or privately without reprisal.

For Brampton’s mayor, Patrick Brown, 47, the city of Brampton encompasses a wide range of cultures and faiths. He frequently attends community events like Bhavani Shankar Mandir’s inauguration, reflecting his belief that religious freedom and faith communities are a force for good in the city.

“I will step in to make sure that every faith community [is given] the same rights and is treated the same,” Brown said when reflecting on the hate South Asians have been receiving.

Another misconception that surfaced online involved the cost of the statue, with several commenters, such as @haydn44fitness (real name unknown), assuming taxpayer money had been used to fund the project. The commenter shared his concern on Singhal’s TikTok on October 23: “I thought this was Canada? I pray tax dollars didn’t go towards this or we need to stop paying our taxes altogether.”

As it turned out, the statue’s installation had been privately funded by the Hindu community through fundraising initiatives held in May 2024 and May 2025, which brought together temple members, local supporters, and donors committed to creating a Hindu landmark in the GTA.

“We had to raise a lot of money,” Ashwar said. “The entire project probably cost us a little more than $1.3 million. When we first began…we decided not to borrow money or use money from the temple’s savings, so we had to do a lot of fundraising.”

Still, members of the Hindu temple chose not to treat the constitutional protection as blanket permission. Instead, they connected with city officials, presenting them with detailed project plans to ensure the statue’s installation aligned with municipal expectations and legal requirements.

“The city was fully supportive of the project,” Ashwar said. “After submitting the project’s plans, we met with the mayor and reached out to our city councillors. We wanted to make sure we were doing things correctly. The city had no problem approving the zoning and the statue’s height for us. Everything was done legally.”

In addition to the financial support, the inauguration was supported by a strong turnout of over 150 volunteers. 

Nikhil Siripaul, 16, was one of many volunteers helping to keep the day running smoothly. A Grade 11 student at Castlebrooke Secondary School, he spent the inauguration guiding guests around the temple grounds, assisting his parents with setting up the first aid centre, and bringing in food and drinks. He also participated in several performances, including dances and a traditional drumming set, with 50 others, on the tabla, an Indian drum.

“I thought it would be a good way to give back to the community and be a part of something so important and monumental,” Siripaul said. He first began attending the temple just over two years ago, quickly becoming an active member of the Youth Group and regularly assisting with the audio and visuals for the temple’s live streams.

As he learned about Ashwar’s Shiva statue project, Siripaul felt a sense of excitement and pride. “It’s not every day something this meaningful gets built in our community,” he said. “It was such a proud and massive moment for Hindus.”

Ashwar’s desire to install a 54-foot-tall Shiva statue began long before the temple’s move 10 years earlier; he wanted a landmark capable of stimulating discussions about Hinduism among the young.

“I thought of this as an opportunity to let young people have something to be proud of,” he said, having found that each generation formed its own relationship with the culture. “The younger folk want things. They want art, landmarks…they want to stand out.”

But standing out meant anticipating criticism from the wider community, something Ashwar acknowledged and expected, given the growing hostility toward Indian immigrants in Brampton, a city famous for housing a large South Asian population.  

Last April, a neighbouring temple, Hindu Sabha Mandir, installed a 55-foot Hanuman statue, which also sparked backlash on social media. During the statue’s installation, criticism spread beyond social media, with complaints reaching local authorities. Yet, like Bhavani Shankar Mandir, the project was funded by community donations, was built on temple grounds, and complied with municipal regulations.

The growing hostility toward Hindus and South Asians in Brampton prompted Ashwar to reflect on the city he moved into more than 20 years ago, comparing it to his childhood in Guyana. “Before Brampton was dominated by the South Asian community, it was very mixed with many races and religions,” he said. “Interacting with other religions back then has helped me really understand that, at the end of the day, we have the same goal. We’re just doing it differently.

“In Guyana, we only had three major religions, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. And while the people were very close, [religious] leaders were very divided. [In Canada], I noticed the leaders are close, but the people are very divided.” 

To diminish the division Ashwar exposed, Brown has launched an interfaith council, where leaders from different faiths would meet regularly. “I think talking to [other faiths] is the basis of encouraging respectful dialogue [between communities],” Brown said. “But I also think it’s our duty to stick up for one another. When hate comes, and it will, and there’s some bigoted remark, we denounce it together.” 

Nadira Suckoo, 26, a Christian-Jamaican Canadian and an attendee at the inauguration, said that Canadians of Western religions may have a misunderstanding of Hinduism because of differences in how they worship: “At least coming from Pentecostal Caribbean Christians, we don’t really focus on elaborate places of worship or statues, which might be because Pentecostal Christians are more popular in areas where slavery was pronounced. Our primary goal was to become a very righteous and spiritual being.”

Having grown up in the diverse small town of Malton, Ontario Suckoo’s childhood was filled with friends whose families ate different foods, spoke different languages, and practiced different religions. Her upbringing didn’t just expose her to diversity, it also taught her to expect it, value it, and feel a sense of safety within it.

“It’s easy to villainize something you don’t know anything about,” she said. “But if [people] took a couple of seconds to learn the significance of things, they’d realize we’re all on the same page.”

She heard of the Shiva statue event from friends and decided that attending would be a great way to show support. Her previous experiences attending Hindu events, such as Diwali celebrations, had always left her feeling welcome and included. She viewed these events as opportunities to learn more about the differing cultures around her. 

When she later learned of the negative comments circulating online, she felt disheartened that such hostility existed in a region she associated with diversity and openness. To her, the GTA was a place where cultural differences should bring people together, not drive them apart.

One comment that caught her attention read, “Canada is being invaded through immigration, disgusting,” posted by Sudbury resident Boston Blacklock.

“I wouldn’t call those comments ignorance,” Suckoo said. “Ignorant comments come from a place of not knowing, but these depict prejudice; people just don’t like [the statue] or want it here.”

She wondered why people choose to post negative comments on things they don’t know about. “I understand why they may feel frustrated, but going online to vent is never the best idea,” she said. “The internet has become this boiling pot of hate—people aren’t there to debate with an open mind; they’re there to spew whatever harmful opinions they want. I doubt the same commenters would show up to an event and say these things out loud. They know the repercussions, and they know what they’re saying is morally wrong. It’s just easier to get away with it online.”

With Canada’s history in mind, Brampton’s mayor considered comments like Blacklock’s as bigoted. “There’s no contradiction in being fiercely proud of your ancestry, your heritage, and your history, and at the same time, being fiercely proud to be Canadian. There is no contradiction in loving where you came from and loving where you are,” he said. “And, unless you’re Indigenous, everyone has come from somewhere else, and we should learn about each other’s journeys—not let it be a reason for division.”

Most comments came from users with private profiles; attempts to reach their authors went unanswered, confirming Suckoo’s opinion that online anonymity lets people spread harmful opinions without facing consequences.

“Everyone will always have an opinion about [something],” 16-year-old Siripaul said. “But there should be mutual respect and understanding for one another.”

Being a Canadian Hindu, Siripaul understood the importance of respecting his cultural roots while embracing the values and opportunities Canada provides: “Our culture is who we are, and this [statue] will be here for a long time.”

Like Siripaul, Ashwar acknowledged that no act in a country like Canada could satisfy everyone. “The people making those types of comments don’t even have an identity on social media,” he said.

However, despite the composed stance of Bhavani Shankar Mandir’s leading priest, members of the Hindu community, like Shawn Binda, refused to remain silent and responded to public hostility by attempting to educate them. “I try not to take the comments too seriously, but I feel the need to respond because people read the comments. It’s important to show that there are people who disagree with what’s being said and give an alternative view,” he said.

And despite the backlash lingering online, what mattered most was choosing unity over division. Youths like Siripaul will continue to see the 54-foot Shiva statue as a connection between their religion and the wider GTA and as a signifier of identity. “That [statue] is a reminder that our roots are everywhere—not just in India or Guyana. It gives us a visible symbol for our culture in an everyday environment,” Siripaul said.

At the Shiva statue’s grand unveiling, Mayor Brown, City Councillor Rod Power, local police officers, and representatives from various faiths stood alongside the Hindu community, publicly supporting both the statue and the right to practice their religion freely.

“We’ve pushed past the Eurocentric idea of how religion is supposed to appear,” Suckoo said. “That’s why I appreciated Mayor Patrick Brown’s speech, especially when he pointed out that it would not be fair to limit [Hindus] based on a mould that was never made for them.”

Standing on stage in front of all the attendees, Brown described his attendance at the unveiling as an honour, voiced his pride in supporting the Hindu community, and spoke of the hypocrisy in the treatment of religious expression.

Brown, who had received complaints and seen criticism of the statue’s installation online, said, “In Brampton, we are proud of religious freedom [and] treat all faiths the same. If there were a giant cross—and there are on many churches—[people] would not object. If a Hindu [temple] wants to have a beautiful statue of Shiva, it would be hypocritical and dishonest to say anything other than congratulations on the growth of Bhavani Shankar Mandir.”

The mayor’s words carried beyond the podium that evening, offering more than just political reassurance. He affirmed a certain vision of Brampton and the wider GTA that allows faiths to be visible, cultures to be lived, and traditions to be shared without apology.

The Shiva statue, standing tall on Bhavani Shankar Mandir’s grounds, will forever be a symbol of one truth: integration can exist without compromise, and faith does not need to be compromised to belong in a country.

Sandhya is a freelance writer and can be reached at sandhya_maharaj@hotmail.com

Tough Love, Jamaican Style

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Many Jamaican parents believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. Are they right?

By Bria Barrows | Featured image courtesy of David Peterson via Pixabay | Updated April 20, 2020

My dad, Charles Barrows, leans his back against the ledge of our kitchen sink in Toronto as he recalls growing up in Jamaica as a young boy. At age 56, he’s tall and sturdy and has a youthful grin. His thick, black hair is speckled with gray. The creases of his smile go upwards as he laughs and the sound of his voice echoes throughout the room. He’s been in Canada exactly 46 years, but his Jamaican patois accent is still thick as he speaks about his childhood in the lush Caribbean nation. 

“I’m about six years old and I come home after walking about ten kilometers from Font Hill Primary School [in Saint Thomas Parish]. I’m panting and sweating. My heart beats fast from running. I haven’t even got into the house when my mom comes out and tells me to get firewood,” he says.

“I am hot and tired and I don’t want to get firewood after travelling all that way from school. So, I mumble something under my breath loud enough for my mom to hear. She realizes I’m backtalking her instead of doing as I’m told.

“My mom begins to chase me with a piece of stick to beat me. In Jamaica, you do as you’re told and backtalking my mother is not acceptable. I run away and I think I’ve gotten away until a young man who lives in the district sees that my mom is chasing me. He hops off his donkey and grabs me, [which allows] my mom to beat me repeatedly.”

I’m stunned that at only six years old my dad was asked to do things like get firewood and water. 

“If your parents send you to get water five miles away, you have to get it,” he says. “Sometimes our parents even sent us to get water for the house at night when it’s pitch black.  If it isn’t done we get beaten.”

When it comes to discipline in Jamaica, corporal punishment has been practiced in households for a very long time. An article published in 2017 by the Western Mirror, a local Jamaican newspaper, noted that: “Corporal punishment, as practiced in Jamaica, has been with us from time immemorial. Older folks, in retrospect, still believe that the spankings they received back in the day have made them the  law-abiding citizens that they are now.”

Many Jamaican children, whether they live on the island or in other countries such as Canada, experience physical punishment for misbehaviour. While some, who are now adults, believe this focus on discipline and structure is beneficial, others say there are negative consequences to being raised this way.

I ask my dad if he thinks that doing chores in the house and getting beatings at a young age old benefited him at all.

 “It instills fear in you,” he says. “Nowadays, with kids, there’s no consequence for anything  they do. The fear teaches kids not to do wrong and to be on the straight and narrow. It’s beneficial because it makes you respect your parents. If you don’t beat the kids they will run you out of your house. You need tough love because the world is not soft.

Looking back as an adult now, I’m who I am because of how I was raised. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in. My dad would come in the room to wake me and if I didn’t wake up I would get beaten. My upbringing gave me my work ethic.” 

“Sometimes our parents even sent us to get water for the house at night when it’s pitch black.  If it isn’t done we get beaten.”

I next talk to Paula Taylor, a neighborhood friend, in early December 2019. She’s big in stature and her face is round. She wears a colourful hair wrap, the bright yellows and oranges a contrast to her plain, black winter jacket.  For Taylor, 42, structure was a big part of her childhood.

“Coming from a Jamaican background, especially as a female, I was required to take care of the home. Being a young child, I thought, ‘This is so hard, I’m not having fun like my friends.’ But going into the workforce today, I appreciate the structure that my mom taught me,” she says.

Taylor agrees that having to do chores and being forced to attend church regularly are the types of responsibilities today’s young generation need.

“My upbringing taught me to be realistic and hold onto things that are valuable and eliminate the things that aren’t,” she says. “If we, as parents, don’t teach our children a certain foundation such as chores, we should not be surprised that as they get older, they may struggle to get certain things and retain information at work, etc.,” she says.

As I explore this topic, I speak with 29-year-old Crystal Hackett, who was born in Toronto and still lives there. She has a small frame, belied by her strong, assertive voice. Her skin is a dark, chocolate complexion and her long black hair drapes over her shoulders.  Her warm smile brightens her face.

 Crystal recalls her mom, Karen Hackett, telling her about being punished as a child in Jamaica.

“My mom would get beat in public,” Karen told her. One consequence, Crystal believes, is that when Karen became a parent, she was not as nurturing towards Crystal as Crystal would have liked.  Although she used physical punishment on Crystal, she didn’t apply it in public. “I felt my parents were crazy for beating me in public,” Karen says today. “It’s negative because it’s something I’ll never forget. But that was the norm back then.”

Crystal doesn’t want to continue the cycle of punishments, and the possible alienation it could cause now that she’s a parent. “In raising my daughter, I want to up the communication,” she says. “I don’t want my daughter to feel like she can’t talk to me about certain things. In my childhood, the nurturing aspect was restrained.”

I also talk to Maxine (she didn’t want to give her real name), a physically strong 56-year-old despite having a small frame. Her brown skin glows and her high cheekbones stand out on her face. The curls from her black, twisted hair fall to her shoulders. Living in Saint Thomas, Jamaica, she’s witnessed children getting hit for even the littlest things.

“I saw people beat their kids with what we call the ‘coconut broom,’” she says. “They would take it off the tree and hit them until their skin had welts. I’ve seen kids publicly beaten and shamed. Kids would get cursed at and were beaten until their lips bust open.”

“Being a young child, I thought, ‘This is so hard, I’m not having fun like my friends.’ But going into the workforce today, I appreciate the structure that my mom taught me.”

She suggests that at the heart of the punishment issue is the belief, held by some adults, that children aren’t seen as people.

“Some kids back home are treated like nothing because the parents think they are their property and they can do what they like,” she says. “I’ve heard parents say, ‘I brought you into this world and I can take you out!’ The parents think that beating their kids will put them on the straight and narrow, but this isn’t necessarily true. The beatings for some kids have the opposite effect, which causes them to resent their parents for what they did. It is a form of trauma I believe.”

Maxine sees both good and bad resulting from her tough upbringing, noting that her mother provided for the house but did not express love or affection. “I’m not really sure my mom knew how to be affectionate, but I did feel like I was treated like an outsider. She spent most of her time with her church family as opposed to her blood family. There was no love, affection, bonding, I would have liked that. I always felt like my mom had a hands-off approach and kept me at arm’s length. She didn’t want me to get too close to her.”

When Maxine was still a youngster, her mother abandoned her, which caused her to withdraw from others. “When I was young, I had a hard time expressing my feelings to people,” she says. “I never asked people for favours because I thought I was capable of taking care of myself. However, my upbringing did give me structure, work ethics and discipline. It also kept me realistic and grounded.

The times might be changing in Jamaica, however. In 2018, Education, Youth and Information Minister, Senator Ruel Reid, called for it to be banned. “Corporal punishment is so entrenched in our culture and interwoven in our society that it has been accepted as a norm for many families and at a point in time in our schools. We have been able to repel that in large measure,” the Jamaica Information Service reported him saying. “Laws are being strengthened to protect children from corporal punishment and other acts of violence.”

“Some kids back home are treated like nothing because the parents think they are their property and they can do what they like.”

Two years later, corporal punishment is no longer permitted in Jamaican schools. According to the Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment, “Corporal punishment is prohibited in early childhood institutions [daycares and daycares for older children]. This law also goes for public and private schools.”

After all these conversations, it seems to me that a strict upbringing can have benefits. As a millennial, I definitely think the rules and responsibilities and structure that some Jamaican parents instill in their children is needed. It allows kids to progress when they get older because they carry these values into their jobs. This type of focus is lacking for some kids and a certain level of structure is needed to be an active contributor to society. Some children also aren’t taught the importance of respect for their elders or the value of working hard.

In an age where it’s so easy to get distracted by technology and social media, knowing how to be focused on your goals and dreams and have a direction for your life is needed. I know I would have been so distracted growing up if my parents hadn’t taught me the importance of having an education. They raised me this way because in Jamaica they were taught discipline.

I also think being well-mannered, an attribute many Jamaican parents teach their kids, is noticed by people when they meet you for the first time; this, to me, is a positive.

On the other hand, beating a child until they have welts, with objects such as belts and tree sticks, can have a lasting psychological effect. I think some Jamaican parents today should understand that while beatings might have been viewed as helpful when they were young, talking to your kids and having open conversations are also effective, perhaps more so.

Although I can see the need to instill discipline, I have no intention of punishing my children, when I have them, in any harsh ways. To me, the negative effects far outweigh the benefits.

Bria Barrows, a Toronto freelance writer, can be reached at briasbarrows@gmail.com

The Van Attack: One Year Later

Published on by Victoria SilmanLeave a comment

A year ago, I witnessed one of Toronto’s greatest tragedies, an event that altered my view of the world. This is what I saw.

By Victoria Silman | Featured images courtesy of Victoria Silman | April 23, 2019

One year ago, the unfathomable hatred of a lonely man changed my life.

For as long as I can remember, images of tragedy committed by people with political and personal agendas flashing across 24-hour news channels have littered my life—as I’m sure they have of many others. One of my most vivid memories is watching the newscast of September 11. The video of planes flying into the side of the sky-high glass windows and burning buildings drew my attention to the 14-inch television screen in our kitchen. The TV sat up on the counter, so my tiny seven-year-old self had to stretch up on my toes to see it.

Though there is a disconnect watching tragedy on TV, this is not to say that I was ever ambivalent or naïve to mass murders around the world. However, 13 months ago, on April 23, it happened to me.

At approximately 1:30 p.m., on an unseasonably warm, sunny day, a man drove a large white rental van down the sidewalks of Yonge Street. He started at Finch Avenue, heading south, and ended up just south of Sheppard Avenue, hitting every person he possibly could in the two-kilometre stretch. His primary goal was to hit women. In the hours following the tragedy, April 23 would soon become synonymous with the “Toronto Van Attack.”

The suspect identified himself as an “incel”—short-form for “involuntarily celibate,” a term coined by the occupiers of the deep, dark web. Consisting of mostly men, this culture derives their hatred towards women from their lack of success at dating them.

While I had previously heard of this underground culture (mostly in passing), I never really envisioned my life to be directly affected by it.

But every day I look out my 11-floor apartment window at Earl Bales park, I’m reminded of it. Just beyond the serenity of the evergreen forest and suburban streets lies a stretch of skyscrapers lining Yonge street where the attack occurred—a constant image of the things I saw that day.

Like 9/11, me driving north on Yonge from Sheppard on that balmy Monday is still one of my most vivid memories. You never forget pools of crimson blood and bodies strewn along a busy street.  


Following the attack, a memorial was established at Mel Lastman Square | Victoria Silman | April 29, 2018.

Amid the chaos, a horrible silence descended on the street—an aura of shock in the air clouding over the shining sunlight.

My partner and I were initially on our way to a gym near York Mills Road when we were rerouted due to deadlocked traffic heading south on Yonge just passed Sheppard. We speculated there could be construction; however, we would later learn that the suspect was being apprehended only a few metres from where we were.

We decided to head north instead to eventually make our way to York University’s gym. Having been rerouted, we made our way north on Doris, eventually turning onto Elmwood, the street leading to Mel Lastman Square.

Passing by the square, I distinctly remember a man in beige pants performing CPR on what appeared to be a woman in a dark, knee-length skirt on the ground near some planters. Next to him, a woman was doing the same for another individual whom we couldn’t see. I initially thought perhaps it was a CPR course. There seemed to be hundreds of people populating the square—perhaps there was an event going on.

It wasn’t until we drove a little more north and spotted a glass bus shelter shattered on the sidewalk, people lying on both sides of the street, and first responders speeding towards us, that we realized something terrible had happened. Newscast images from truck attacks in Nice and Barcelona must have been embedded in my subconscious, because I distinctly remember thinking to myself “only a vehicle could have caused this carnage.”

As we continued driving, time seemed to slow down as first responders began arriving in the opposite direction we were travelling. Police cars jumped curbs in an effort to get to victims quickly. One officer on foot covered the face of a victim—a man I recognized once the names of the victims were released— lying on the side of the road before he set off to help another.

It didn’t really hit me until fiery orange body bags began engulfing the street.

My recollection of the events of that day is framed by one person I spoke to: Rachel Hernandez, a young, vibrant 22-year-old, who worked at Jack Astor’s, which faces Mel Lastman Square. She witnessed the aftermath of the attack.

Initially, Hernandez noticed some commotion outside, but didn’t think it was a major emergency. She saw a person performing chest compressions on someone lying on the ground but assumed they may have had a heart attack on the sidewalk. Little did she know 10 lives were ending on the stretch of Yonge Street she walks down every day.


That was the first time I saw the body bags—we could see Mel Lastman Square from the booths on the second floor.

It wasn’t until half an hour later that she realized the situation was far more serious. “That is when we noticed there were a lot of ambulances outside the restaurant. I kept working, but guests started crowding to get near the windows and kept looking out,” she says.

“Some of our coworkers started to get near the windows, too. I thought ‘ok something is happening,’ so I went over to the windows. That was the first time I saw the body bags—we could see Mel Lastman Square from the booths on the second floor. It was extremely shocking.”

Guests at Jack Astor’s checked the news, informing Hernandez and the rest of the staff what had happened just steps from their work. “I was shocked—a van attack happened right outside our restaurant. It was really scary,” she says. In this time, officers came in looking for witness statements, bringing her into the reality of the situation.

Jack Astor’s staff had cleared out the rest of the guests, and, after providing statements to police, they gathered around the bar on the first floor to watch CP24 on the slew of televisions on the wall. Watching the story unfold, they cried together.

Some time later, as I sat at home, lying shocked and dazed with bloodshot eyes from crying for hours following the attack, Hernandez was getting ready to leave work. Police informed her and other staff at Jack Astor’s that they would require a police escort armed with an assault rifle to leave the building and head to their transportation. Stepping onto the street alongside the officer brought a range of emotions to her.

“It was so eerie—we walked out of Jack’s and the streets were completely empty. Only police officers and ambulances were there. An officer with a rifle was escorting us to a block or two down,” she says.

On April 24, the day following the attack, I went with my roommate to Mel Lastman Square to lay flowers on our way out of the city. Crime scene cleaners were just finishing spraying blood from the sidewalk when we arrived. It was cloudy and grey, and the sunny day accompanied by aura of shock from the previous day had turned into a sprinkling of rain and the pouring of grief down on the city.

On the anniversary of the tragedy, supporters laid flowers at a memorial plaque at Mel Lastman Square | Victoria Silman | April 23, 2019.

Community members laid flowers in and around the large planter at the corner of the square near Starbucks. Throughout the week, letters, candles, and bouquets began flowing past the bright red Muskoka chairs near the planter. Signs proclaiming “love for all, hatred for none” stuck out behind the overflowing flowers. Just down the street at Finch, a group of mourners 

The months following allowed for the community to gain some semblance of normality. The skies became brighter and the weather warmer, though witnesses and victims continued to deal with the mental, emotional, and physical scars from their traumas.

Sometimes when I’m walking down a street in Toronto, I catch myself holding my breath and my heartrate rising as a large white van drives by—perhaps a common reaction from others who witnessed the same horrors.

When I spoke to Hernandez in November, I asked her how the attack has affected her life in public. “Today I went to the bank right by Yonge and Finch,” she said. “Even now when I walk, I do so closer to the building instead of next to the road. I’m still kind of traumatized from it.”

It’s been exactly a year since a self-proclaimed incel ran down 26 people, killing 10, critically wounding 16 others, and altering the lives of hundreds of witnesses.  Since then, other tragedies have held my attention with unrelenting force. The Danforth shooting, and the Christchurch attack both kept me up until the early hours of the morning, recounting my emotions and experiences in witnessing the death of multiple people.

Reflecting in the late of the night, I always remember the flaw in my thinking 13 months ago. While it feels these tragedies always happen to other people, we must not forget that other person could be you.

Victoria is a freelance writer, Executive Editor, Developer for The Scribbler. For inquiries, please contact her at victoriamsilman@gmail.com.