What has been your biggest struggle? by Estefania Castañeda
For 13 years all I ever did was try to eat my onions, learn the theme song of my favorite TV shows, try to memorize the multiplication table, and play. Play, play, play, all day and night was my motto. My parents might have been the kind of parents that cared that I learned diligence and responsibility, but either way for my child-self everything after all was a game. Why did it have to change? When did I stop seeing things as facile and started making a big deal out of everything? I always knew something had to happen but I didn’t notice it had started already until I turned 15. I don’t know why, but I know how: External pressure. Pressure from EVERYTHING around me. My surroundings started me telling me that beginning a certain point in life, everything I did would have a mark on my future.
Adolescence is the period of life where a child forms and transforms into an adult. But, how can anyone expect (especially since they all have gone through it) a child, a mere naive child, to completely become a responsible, put together-successful, full grown-up?
I struggled with it. From elementary to junior high, the piles of homework duplicated by tens, but despite of that, all I ever wanted was to keep playing with my dolls along with my sister. Then, watching cartoons or any child’s shows was not appropriate anymore! When did children’s stuff become not appropriate to watch on the TV but violence was? I turned 14, 15, 16, and when I turned 17 I started working. Working is the way, in my family, you show you have grown up and are competent, especially when all of them have an anti-homeschooling mentality. I received a job offer to be a pre-school English teacher, and my whole childhood was done right there. I felt I had to take the job, not exactly because I wanted to, although I did feel it was a fair opportunity, but because I had to for my parents. My parents didn’t force me to take the job, but what do you do when your home needs help and you’re in perfect conditions to do so? Well, you help. A moment ago I was the kid playing dodge ball and answering flash cards, but now I’m the teacher telling the kids to not hit each other and to stay quiet in the classroom.
Why did I have to become an adult? I didn’t want to. I refused to do it. But when all your friends, close ones, boss, and students, basically tell you to, it’s pretty difficult to go against what’s “natural.”
I know my taste in many things started to change. It’s only “natural.” it’s the age. And I’m not against that, but if no one had taken the time to tell me what I should like and what I shouldn’t like now, maybe it wouldn’t have been so tough. Thanks to my denying it, I became an 18 year old young adult a little bit differently but effectively anyway.
I struggled with growing up because I was a child, and suddenly I turned 15 and I had the pressure for taking my life more seriously. It was challenging, but I did it.