My mom got married at a very young age, as soon as she finished high school at the age of 18. She never got to see a world beyond school. Getting married so young, she quickly jumped from being just a student to a wife. Besides her day to day obligations (cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc) she had a lot of free time on her hands. My mom took up knitting as a hobby after seeing her mother in law doing it. My mom is part of a very wealthy family as opposed to my dad, who is from a much smaller, and less regulated part of Bangladesh. Once they got married, my mom could not ask her family for money anymore and had to do with the little that was budgeted for day to day expenses. Once my sister was born, knitting sweaters was the only way to keep warm during the chilly winters. This sweater was the first one my mom had crocheted for my sister. Around the time she turned four, my mom decided she wanted to expand the family. However, she no longer wanted to be in Bangladesh. She wanted her children to have a better education and decided it was time to make a change. One of the few things my mom brought with her when moving to the US was this sweater, keeping in mind that New York gets very cold during the fall and winter time. However, coming here with what she had left of her savings and needing to make more money, she decided to knit scarves and sell them at a neighborhood store. This was her first job here in the US and she did what she loved doing the most.  
 

– Umme M

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant