When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a

When Winnie Madikizela-Mandela spoke the words, “When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy,” she did not merely tell a story of childhood; she revealed a timeless struggle — the battle between expectation and identity, between the world’s desire and the soul’s truth. Her words ring like the sound of iron on stone, forged in a life of defiance. From her first breath, the world whispered what she was not — and so she learned to become everything it said she could not be. Her mother’s disappointment became her fire; her tomboy spirit, the armor she forged to walk among men who doubted her power.

In every age, the birth of a daughter has been both a blessing and, in many hearts, a question — a question born of ignorance and fear. Ancient voices once declared that sons carried the lineage, while daughters carried the silence. Yet time and again, it is the daughters who have broken the silence with thunder. From the child denied her mother’s joy grew a woman who would command respect, who would march beside the mighty, who would carry the cause of freedom upon her shoulders. Winnie's story is the story of countless women — those who were not wanted, yet who became necessary; those who were told they were lesser, yet who proved themselves greater.

To understand Winnie’s tomboyhood is to understand rebellion not as defiance, but as awakening. When a young girl climbs the trees, runs through the dust, speaks boldly where she was told to whisper — she is not imitating boys; she is claiming her humanity. The tomboy is the first warrior of equality, the one who refuses the narrow garments of expectation. In the heart of every tomboy burns a refusal to be small. Winnie, born into disappointment, did not shrink beneath it — she transformed it into a challenge. The disappointment of her mother became the first stone in the foundation of her strength.

Think of Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who put on armor when no one believed a woman could lead an army. Like Winnie, she wore the world’s disbelief as a second skin. She did not ask for permission; she acted from the certainty of purpose. Both women — separated by centuries and continents — reveal the same eternal truth: that the soul knows no gender. Courage, justice, endurance — these are not the possessions of men or women, but of those who dare to rise. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, standing amid oppression, learned early that her strength would not be granted; it would have to be taken.

Her mother’s disappointment was a wound, yes, but from that wound poured the rivers of power. For it is often those denied love in their innocence who learn to build love out of stone. Winnie’s strength was not softness born of nurture, but hardness born of survival. The child who wished to please her mother grew into the woman who refused to please an unjust world. In the soil of rejection, she grew roots of iron. And thus, her childhood pain became the seed of her nation’s resistance — her personal rebellion became a symbol of collective liberation.

Let this truth be carried forward as a flame for the generations: Do not let the world’s disappointment define your worth. When others wish you were something else — stronger, braver, different — become all of those things, but for yourself, not for their approval. If life greets you with rejection, greet it back with transformation. Become a tomboy of the spirit — fierce, fearless, free. Refuse to let expectation bind your steps; refuse to let sorrow chain your will. Every disappointment can become destiny if faced with courage.

And finally, take from Winnie’s words a lesson carved from the ancient law of strength: your birth does not define your value; your becoming does. If the world greets your arrival with silence, let your deeds thunder. If the ones who should have loved you looked away, then love yourself fiercely, and love the world enough to change it. For every soul that was once unwanted has within it the power to remake what is wanted, to reshape what is possible. Like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, rise — not to prove them wrong, but to prove yourself right.