That’s all I want to hear.
I’m sure what few followers I have are starting to get annoyed by my teenage angst posts. Oh well.
I was invited to the academic banquet at my school, where I would be presenting a speaker since I’m reporter of NHS, and where I would be honored for being in the top 10% of my class, for being in National Honor Society, for being on the AB honor roll, and for being a commended scholar for some organization with a long, impressive sounding name. I invited my parents to attend, because they never attend anything of mine. I wanted them to be there to support me. To be proud of me.
When I get home, my mother looks angry and I ask her why. She snaps, “So Christina is doing better than you now?” She basically berates me for not being first in my class and how I was used to be smart, but I’ve become a lazy girl who does nothing but play and go out. I didn’t work hard enough. “You used to be number one, and the black boy was number two! And now he and a lot of other people are ahead of you!” Basically, I am a disappointment. They are not proud of me. At all.
I can’t help but cry, and cry hard. Because as a daughter, all I want to do was make my parents proud. I wish my other friends would be grateful for parents who try to be involved and understand. All I ever wanted to do was make them proud of me. And when I yelled back at my mom and said that she didn’t want me to be her daughter, that she wished those other students who did better were her children, she didn’t correct me.
They did not go to a single band concert, a single theatre performance, anything. They don’t understand how difficult some of my classes are. I can be lazy; so can everyone else. But I have accomplishments.
I wish for once, they can stop criticizing me for not being the best, for not being those other students. I wish they could love me for who I am.
I hope that one day, I will have the courage to tell my parents how they make me feel. And that if I have kids, I won’t make the same mistake.
