“Taking Away the Scaffolding” By: Jenny Lu

Written by Stephano

Topics: Archive (2012-2019), Uncategorized

Masons when the start upon a building, are careful to test out the scaffolding. Is that what I forgot to do? When I started off to go to college, I was expecting my parents to support me wholly, and my college fund would be covered in a blink of the eye when I requested to my parents that they would help me pay the tuition. But I was wrong; my parents said I needed to pay for most of the tuition, by working. I was shocked, all my life my parents would pay for anything I needed or wanted without question, and now when I needed money the most, they refuse me? I felt like the old bridges I had built up with my parents were breaking between us.
“How am I supposed to get the money?!” I burst out angrily, at my parents’ refusal to help, but I was told simply to get a job or two if I needed to, and even three if I had the time. I was at a breaking point, there was no way I could find the time to get a job, and the thought of having two jobs wasn’t even thinkable! I was frustrated at my parents, and I stormed upstairs to my room to complain about them to my friends—whose parents agreed to pay for their tuition. I sat on my bed fuming, sitting there trying to think of what I did to get this sort of treatment from my parents. I heard a soft knock on the door, and my mother crept in, almost timidly.
“You know…” she said calmly, looking me straight in the eye, “you are your own person, like a building having its own structure. Me and your father, as your parents are just the scaffolding in a construction project. We are only here to make sure you don’t fall and crumble.” I didn’t understand, and she could tell, but my mother ignored that fact and continued to speak, “You are older now, and that’s like when the construction project is almost done, and we are ready to break away and take the scaffolds down, and let you stand alone. We hope you are able to support yourself without us, like buildings do when the scaffolds are taken down. But never fear, we may have let the scaffolds fall, but I am confident that we have built our wall.” After saying that, my mother decided to get up and exit my room, leaving me in a befuddled mess, with many unanswered questions. Am I on my own now? How would I do without my parents to hold me up? Would I crash and fall to the ground, or would I stand tall? All my life I had trusted my parents to help me in need, would they help me still? Staring at my ceiling in my bedroom, I made up my mind; I would get a summer job. My mother believed that I was strong enough to stand alone by myself, and I would prove her right.

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