Title
Class Year
2020
Document Type
Blog Post
Publication Date
12-1-2016
Department 1
Center for Public Service
Abstract
As I have gotten older, I have learned that no matter how hard I try, I am never going to be able to repay my mother for everything that she did for me. The blood, sweat, and tears she put into nurturing the sick and troublesome, five-year-old me, the rebellious and lazy fifteen-year-old me, and the clumsy, and sometimes lost me now, are insurmountable. I know she had more trouble raising me than she was supposed to. I know her first five years of being a mother did not include taking me to the park, sitting down on a park bench, and having a family picnic in the sun. Most of it was watching me struggle on the white sheet of the hospital bed. That is why I have always felt obligated to be her perfect child, to be a daughter so good that no one would be able to say that she had not done a good job raising me. And it was an obligation that I was very happy to fulfill, because I honestly loved being in the mold that she put me in.
[excerpt]
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Trinh, Mai, "I Hope" (2016). SURGE. 292.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/surge/292
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Education Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons
Comments
Surge is a student blog at Gettysburg College where systemic issues of justice matter. Posts are originally published at surgegettysburg.wordpress.com Through stories and reflection, these blog entries relate personal experiences to larger issues of equity, demonstrating that –isms are structural problems, not actions defined by individual prejudice. We intend to popularize justice, helping each other to recognize our biases and unlearn the untruths.