05/11/2025
When I was young, I failed almost every report card. Summer school became a routine.
My parents assumed studying just wasn’t for me. But when I got to university and money was tight, I became an A and B student.
It wasn’t about ability,
it was about timing, meaning, and choice.
Or maybe it was a quiet rebellion,
a way my younger self coped with what she didn’t know how to express.
Sometimes the people who think they know us are surprised when we finally meet ourselves.
Because the truth is, we don’t really know one another. We only know what we see through our own fears, hopes, and conditioning.
This isn’t about not having hopes for your child, every parent wants them to thrive, to be safe, to have a good life.
The challenge is when those hopes become assumptions about who they should be, instead of letting them grow into who they truly are.
This is not a judgment toward parents,
especially not mine.
There were many presumptions they made about me that were wrong.
Not because they were bad, but because some choices were made unconsciously, and others mirrored the ways I had adapted.
