This short story is my entry for @swissclive's short story initiative which involves Steemians to post a short story in under 300 words. Here are the rules:
- The first tag must be "story-300words".
- The story must be within 300 words.
- Only original works. No plagiarism.
- Last day for this initiative is 8th January 2018.
Word count for this story is 300 words.
"You will amount to nothing. I’m very disappointed," the mother of a thirteen-year-old girl said, disappointedly shaking her head. This was the reaction of a mother whose daughter had secured the second position in the swimming competition held at her school. Margaret was a sincere student and a swimmer, but her mother found a way to crush her spirits every chance she got.
Margaret was always compared to her peers and was always put down by her parents. The constant comparison and insulting by her parents made Margaret have a very low self-esteem.
Margaret tried to talk to her parents about this but all her attempts were like stones cast in the ocean — pointless. She resented her parents for their unjustified constant disapproval. Her parents were never satisfied with her results even after she became the best swimmer in the country.
Twenty five years later, Margaret is a successful swimmer and she’s doing well in life. She is earning quite a lot and she recently won the gold medal in the Olympics. She now has a loving husband and a thirteen-year-old son herself. Her son, John, wants to become a musician. He has a promising career ahead of him. His mother, Margaret, is not happy with him choosing music as his career. According to her, music is not a stable option and she would rather him go to university and thereafter get a stable job. One day, he, hugging his mom, tells her that he won the second prize in the talent show hosted by a popular musician. Instead of congratulating him and giving him the validation he deserves, she told him that she was very disappointed in him for not getting the the first prize. John started crying and pushed his mother away.
I can relate to this but I wonder if parents take their time to reason that they didn't give birth to robots but fragile babies who are prone to make mistakes and also learn.
I hope people like Margaret will read this post and learn not to condemn their children
This reflects how our childhood shapes us as adults and how even though go through the same thing, the emotional abuse is so severe that we become like the one who abused us and it's very hard to fix it permanently without therapy and social support. Self-esteem is such a big part of our lives but we usually avoid it. I hope people can be more empathetic and I myself aim to be a better person than I am eventually.
@adityabhat you said it all. People like that needs help. One thing I always tell myself is that I must be better and also treat others better than the way people treated me.
Like father, like son, what goes around comes around. Its a nice anecdote of a new mother who behaves in the same inconsiderate way that her parents did.
Yes! That's exactly the moral here. Thank you for reading. What do you think could be better in this? I'll make sure I improve.
Great story, can't help but wonder what she'd think of herself
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This post has received a 1.04 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.