How much of the typical Cardassian upbringing was there in your childhood? People say that the Cardassians focus on training their chlidren to concentrate hard and so on, but you were not exactly a Cardassian child, plus the war plus I don't know what else. Were your parents more democratic with you?
First of all, I’d like to say that the common Federation (or maybe just Human?) perceptions of the Cardassian education system are very confusing to me. Yes, Cardassian schooling begins at a very young age, at 2 or 3 years. But this seems to be true in the Federation as well, you just call the first few years of it “pre-school” for some reason. Why is it that playing word games, solving logic puzzles, and memorizing nursery rhymes are called “brain teasers” or “cognitive development exercises” when Humans talk about their own teaching, but call the same types of activities “mind training” when talking about ours? Cardassian parents love their children dearly and want them to have the best opportunities they can possibly provide. And we want our children to grow up prepared to use their talents for the betterment of society, to make advancements in the sciences, in the arts, in politics, and so on. Is that so different from the Federation? And although I have heard some deeply troubling things about a few of the vocational institutes, in general Cardassian teaching methods are not nearly so harsh as those employed by, say, Vulcans. And the Federation clearly doesn’t object to their schools! I really don’t understand how neglecting to give me the best possible education would be the “democratic” thing to do.
... I apologize for losing my temper. You asked me a question because you want to understand my experiences, and your ignorance of my culture is largely a product of my people’s secrecy. It’s not your fault that we’ve both inherited a legacy of misunderstanding between our respective societies.
The biggest difference between my upbringing and that of a typical Cardassian child is how solitary and confined mine was. I was born on Terok Nor and lived there the majority of my childhood. It was a dangerous place-- even with Constable Odo doing his best to keep the peace, fights broke out frequently on the promenade and bomb threats were a regular occurrence-- so I was never allowed to go out and play. And even if I had been, there were rarely any other children there that I could have played with.
(One time, Father got the idea to bring some children from an orphanage on Bajor so I could have playmates. It was a disaster! Most of them were too frightened to do anything, and those that weren’t just got angry that I had so many fancy toys and books and sweets and fine clothes, when they had only worn hand-me-downs they all had to share.)
But educationally, during the early years of my life I was fortunate enough to receive the same advantages that any Cardassian from an upper class family would expect. There were (and perhaps still are) many who believed that children of mixed-species couples are mentally inferior and not worth educating, but Father was not one of them. If anything, he believed the opposite, so his expectations of me were very high. I had tutors that he brought from Cardassia Prime to teach me reading and writing, mathematics, sciences, history, and art. I even had a Bajoran tutor so I could learn to read and write my mother’s native language. That tutor also gave me lessons on the belaklavion, which I hated.
(In retrospect, I feel ashamed at having been such a brat about my music lessons. So many Bajoran families with a heritage of musicianship spanning generations or even centuries had to sell their antique instruments for food, or were forced into labor camps. In some cases people could even be arrested just for playing Bajoran classical or folk music, just like how vedeks were arrested for preaching. It’s just so cruelly unfair that while so many people were denied the right to their own music, I was granted a rare opportunity but all I did with it was rush through practicing so I could go draw tessellations or read a novel.)
So, in short (and thank you for being patient with my rambling explanation!), although my social and family circumstances and the environment in which I was raised were highly unusual, in Father’s view none of that altered his essential responsibility as a parent to provide for me to the best of his ability, nor should it affect the expectations placed upon me.
Of course, all of that changed after my mother and I boarded a freighter bound for Lissepia...
