popcorn09

 

E.g. she talks about a time when she and her brother are teenagers and her parents give her their bedroom and build a room on the porch for her brother while them occupying the space they had earlier reserved for the children in the living room. I was so moved by how considerate parents can be. She talks about how they treated both of their children like adults answering all questions about life and letting the children making all the decisions.

 

She talks about how her brother was a star basketball player who could have had a full scholarship but her parents told him to keep his options open and not think about money. They were prioritising his education and he ends up going to Princeton even though he didn't have a full scholarship. 

 

Then she talks about how she went to a special high school that was far away. And for the first time she was not in her brother's carved footsteps. But it was a place for learning and development. How there is a school trip to go to Paris and she decided that her parents obviously cannot afford it so she didn't even ask them. When her parents found out about it from a classmate, they said it was not her job to worry about the funding and she ended up going to Paris with her school-mates. All while her parents had never themselves even travelled to another state for a vacation.

 

I am flabbergasted. Is this how parents are meant to be?

 

My parents - I had no room, no space. They built space for the clinic, the nurses, the driver, the grandparents - nothing for me. When I was in year 6, I got admission at a school for gifted children (they liked my sister less but were willing to take us both). My sister put her foot down that she was very happy in her school and was not going to change and then I was also told I can't go to the special school. I was so unhappy and I had even forgotten this but I never quite got over it. I hated my middle school and high school. The special school was very far away and would have meant early starts and a part of me was relieved to not have to go through it but another part of me wanted a chance and an opportunity. I felt that if I went to it and as I wouldn't be able to cope with the commute, I might be able to stay in the boarding school there. But it was not meant for me.

 

When I had to go to university, I constantly worried about not going to a private university because it would cost so much more money and my parents couldn't afford it. Then they happily paid a huge amount of money for my sister's masters degree. When I went to do a masters, my mother told me how she would pay exactly what they had paid for my sister. There was a difference of only 40,000 rupees (800d dollars) with my total fee being 587K instead of 550K that they had paid for my sister. I paid for it myself. 

 

I feel so much grief and rage. I feel like a curtain has been lifted, yet again. Of how when I look at things I could never learn such as dancing, music, singing, or anything else, parts of me that had no chance to develop, this was not my fault. They did not let me have the opportunity and continuously ridiculed me for my "failings"

 

How can someone be so cruel? I cannot fathom. It hurts me so much. 

Oh and with all this I constantly heard about the sacrifices they had made for us and how I owe it to them, how I must be grateful.