Let's Go To The Mall!

Growing up in Canada, in a minority culture, are many memories. 🇨🇦 In multicultural cities, the learning curve is huge. As a school teacher in the still very diverse community of Toronto, I’m often taken back to my own childhood here. What did families do on the weekend? For us, every Saturday we woke up knowing today we would be going to THE MALL. The anticipation on Friday nights was palpable. Gathering the whole family in the morning we would make our way out. 🚗

Familiar terrain, that was new every time, the possibilities seemed endless. 🤗

The comfort and safety I felt as a child, on those days, I have carried with me to this day. Forgetting about everything else just for one day. That feeling of togetherness, mixed with a sort of whimsical fancy – trying things on, finding what we saw other kids in school had, and once in a while adding items to our own simple household. With limited income, sometimes our parents threw caution to the wind, allowing us to pick out one thing each! 😳 

Add to that, the excitement of getting burgers or fried chicken on the way home (rather than cooking our own traditional food), tired from our happy day out, makes me smile to this very day. 🍔 🍗 More than the buying of ‘things’ was a day filled with opportunity, affection, and of course, togetherness. Fast forward to high school, and it became a place of friendship, belonging, and footloose, fancy free silliness. 😜

Today, I see my own students and their families doing the same thing. Every Monday morning recap involves recounting family mall trips. Arriving with new sneakers, a fresh binder or pencil case, and sweet smiles of happy days. 👟📚✏️

🌎 People leave their home countries for many reasons, homesickness a large part of that. We adapt to new places in whatever ways we can – one of those ways being the place we call The Mall. A tradition that seemingly spans both generation and culture, consisting now of child-friendly activities, seasonal pop-ups, the meeting of friends, or simply grabbing a coffee. 🛍🛒☕️👦🏻

Whatever you do with your weekend, I hope it is filled with just as much anticipation, and connectedness as those of us had and have, growing up. 💫