JELLYBEANS AND BOUNDARIES

 

“Tag! You’re it!”

“Don’t be too late. Don’t get all sweaty. Come back when you’re hungry—and at least eat a few bites.”

Öykü waved to her mother and ran off to play.

Her mother turned to her sister-in-law.
“See? She ran off without eating again.”
“Let her play. She’ll come back when she’s hungry,” the sister-in-law replied.

By then, Öykü had already disappeared into the cornfield, the stalks taller than she was. How beautifully nature’s colors suited people, her mother thought, smiling as she watched her daughter vanish into the green and gold.

Öykü was playing tag with her friends. Meryem caught her and shouted, “You’re it!”
They scattered like pearls across the garden—some climbing the mulberry tree, others hiding behind plum and oleaster trees. Finding them was easy for Öykü. She would sneak up quietly and then, bursting with excitement, yell, “You’re it!”

Beside the cornfield, her mother had planted a vegetable patch. As she hid, Öykü noticed the tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchinis growing there.
“I’ll surprise Mom,” she thought, picking a few.
But just as she did, someone tagged her again!

Oh, childhood…

She was always good at finding others, but not at hiding herself.
“Wait, let me take these to my mom,” she told her friend Esma.
She ran off, arms full of vegetables, shouting, “Surpriiise!”

Her mother smiled. “Ah yes, a surprise indeed…” The vegetables had been picked too early. She gently explained when they should be harvested—careful not to dull Öykü’s excitement. Öykü nodded, thanked her, and ran back to play.

In the summers, Öykü attended the neighborhood mosque. Afterward, she’d come home, meet her friends, and play until the evening call to prayer. She always came home before dark. Her snacks were the fruits of the gardens—apples, pears, apricots, plums, mulberries, and oleasters. Sometimes she brought a piece of bread from home to eat with the greens they picked.

They climbed trees, gathered fruit, and sometimes pooled their coins to buy treats from the corner shop.
But Öykü rarely went there. Her family didn’t want her eating junk food.
Sometimes she wondered, “Is it because we don’t have money? Or because my parents don’t love me?”

One day, she spent her pocket money on jellybeans. “Oh God, what amazing candy! I wish it would never end. When I grow up and have lots of money, I’ll buy so many jellybeans,” she decided.

In the evenings, she loved greeting her father at the door.
He would tell her mother about his day, while Öykü and her siblings listened quietly nearby. She always wished her father would let them play outside after dark—but he never did.

On the veranda, cicadas sang along to their conversations.
From the roof came the cooing of pigeons, which the children tried to imitate.
After dinner and tea, they’d switch off the lights to keep the insects away.
Öykü and her siblings would complain about having to sleep early.
“When I grow up,” she’d say, “I’ll stay up as late as I want!”

With the lights off, the sky looked so clear—stars and moon shining bright.
In front of her stretched a vast garden, trees, and the cornfield… and far beyond, her grandfather’s orchard.

From Childhood to Motherhood

Years passed quickly, and Öykü built her own home.
She and her husband left for work early each morning. Their children went to school, and the whole family returned home in the evening. After dinner, the children did their homework while Öykü tidied up. They tried to make the most of their time together—fruit time, chess, board games, family movies.

During the summer holidays, her children spent their afternoons playing in the apartment garden.
One day after work, Öykü decided to drop by and see them.
Her children and their friends were gathered around a gazebo.
“We’re having a snack party, Mom!” they said.

Öykü glanced at the table—and saw jellybeans.
“Let me have one,” she said, picking up a piece.
As soon as she bit into it, she was transported back to her childhood…
But it didn’t taste good at all.
Was this what I longed for? The thing I once dreamed of buying in heaps? she thought.

The jellybean was too sweet, rubbery, artificial.
It tasted nothing like the crisp green apples she remembered,
nor the soft sweetness of mulberries,
nor the tartness of plums.
Could a jellybean ever taste like an apricot—or the honeyed firmness of a pear?
Now it was easy to tell real from fake.
The boiled corn she’d eaten from the field back then had been far more delicious.
Now, at last, Öykü knew what she truly longed for.

Sometimes we fail to see the blessings and richness already around us.
We forget to notice, to hear, to feel what’s right in front of us.
It was now Öykü’s turn to raise awareness in her own family—to guide her children.
She finally understood her parents’ way of raising her.

The Experiential Design Teaching says:
“Boundaries are the remedy in raising a human being.”

In this school of life, we are entrusted with nurturing what we are responsible for.
Parents must act like strategists—clear, conscious, and loving in setting boundaries at the right time.

Her father’s and mother’s limits had always been clear.
They nurtured what their children truly needed, and protected them from harm.
Even their “no’s” had goodness hidden inside them.
Now she understood that deeply.
Today, Öykü savored the taste of wholesome, real food,
a direct result of the guidance and protection she’d once questioned.

As a child, she hadn’t understood it.
But now she did.

She felt grateful to her father, her mother, and their boundaries.
And above all, she whispered in her heart,
“I’m so glad You exist.”

Experiential Design Teaching enables us to make our lives easier with consistent, applicable, understandable and useful information. With this information, people learn how to communicate more effectively with their family, friends and customers.