Dear Mom and Dad,

Though you are just a room away, I thought I’d put these things down in a letter to you. Now I am sixteen… right in the middle of what you call the troublesome teens,’ cause you got no other word to describe this phase of my life. Neither do I. I still don’t know whether I’m a child or an adult. At one point of time you say “Behave in a grown up manner,” and when I do behave like an adult, there comes another rebuking statement – “Act your age!”

We have always had disagreements between us, but those are not because I wanted to be a rebel or anything. I have always wanted to be open and free with you but it so happens that our thoughts don’t always match and you have your opinions which you re unwilling to change in front of which my point of view fades in significance. Like then I told you we played with water after school, you didn’t see how much fun we had! All you did was give a talk on how to behave! You complain when I talk to friends for “hours together,” but did you think about how I could tell you if you reacted this way?

Why can’t you be broadminded and not give prejudiced remarks even before I finish what I have to say? I know you hear what I say but really want you to listen.

Also, why do you overprotect? I don’t have your years and experience but I do have some experience and commonsense. I am not that foolish to venture into something bad for my cause just like you are concerned about me, I am concerned about myself.

You don’t even have complete faith in me. You didn’t believe me when I said I was going to Nisha’s house to see the new computer program she had installed, until she told you so herself! It was so humiliating. The other time when I told you I had entered the personality contest, you didn’t encourage me but only laughed saying “you don’t even pronounce ‘s’ properly!” Do you know how frustrating it is when you don’t believe me or have trust in my capabilities? The best or worst thing is I came 2nd in the contest!

All I want is for me to see the world myself and have experience of my own. I am not running blindly into the ‘big bad world’ as you call it, but only tentatively stepping out of your hold to see or rather feel how it is to be in the real world. Just like you grew up, I am growing up, only may be ideas and circumstances are (much more) drastically different now.

But no matter what, I always know that you are the world I first came to know of … the world that made me what I am. We may argue, agree and disagree but through it all there is one thing I’ve always meant to tell you is … I love you.

Your ‘baby’ daughter
Archana