Emotional gap.

I have never heard a single word of encouragement from my parents before.

Even when I had 98 marks for a Maths test when I was 10, my mother would ask where the last 2 points went to. Together with the fact that I once saw the birthday card I made for my parents (their birthdate falls on the same day) in the bin, and that my mother had never used any of the Mother’s Day gifts I bought her, I stopped trying to communicate with them.

When I was younger, I hardly saw my father because he was too busy working to support our extended family. Now that he has more time on his hands, he tries his best, but it’s too late. We never bonded, so we don’t share a wavelength. Whenever my mother opened her mouth, it was to nag. She doesn’t do small-talk, never asked how my day was, never enquired about my studies until she realized my exams were almost over. She spent all her energy preventing me from making guy friends, making sure I come back immediately after school, and pampering my brother.

It is a well-known fact that she loves my brother more. Even my aunt couldn’t take it lying down anymore and spoke to my father one day about the obvious favoritism. I’ve always believed that once I’ve entered adulthood, my mother would connect better and we’d become better friends. Unfortunately, we’ve not even perfected the mother-daughter relationship, how can we ever become friends?

I am a highly imaginative person and I joke around a lot with my friends. My parents never saw that side of me. They taught me to be controlled and anything more than that is just frivolous. Everytime I have an idea, it’d be shot down before it even begins to take flight. Maybe that’s why up til now I don’t have a passion. I’ve never had the chance to explore anything. We get along fine, just don’t try asking my parents anything too deep about me, because they’d be too embarrassed to say that they don’t know.

Today was a rather emotional day for me. I got home, finally being able to rest, so the last thing I wanted to do was to talk to anyone who has nothing nice to say. Unfortunately for me, my mother wasn’t asleep yet. She passed some comment about a business that I just started up, as if she knew any better.

If I were mean, I would say that I have a certain level of disrespect for my parents. Both of them were in the same company respectively for more than 25 years. They have never seen how fast the world is changing, how technology has progressed, how educated the rest of the world has become, but somehow, parents always think they know best. But do they really?

I know more about my business than anyone else would know, but she thought she had a right to lecture me on how I should conduct my business tonight. I brushed her off as usual, telling her that I know what I’m doing, but I was doing all I could to forget the patronizing tone of her voice. She went on nagging until I shouted Enough! and closed the door in her face. Before I could control myself, I said, “Never once have I heard a word of encouragement from you. Never.” As I stood staring at the back of the door with tears threatening to fall, I thought I had finally gotten to her.

Too soon, I heard the same unfeeling, insensitive voice piercing my eardrums: “I’m just telling you.”