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Parent Pressure
"I was almost in tears at the end of the marking period because my math grade didn't change."
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By Sanovia Jackson
Sometimes our parents are the last people we want to talk to about our grades. I know I've been in that situation. When I wasn't doing well in my math class, I wasn't exactly in a hurry to tell my mom about it.
Math isn't my best subject, and probably never will be. The equations just don't make sense to me. I get confused by all the different ways to solve a problem, and that slows me down when I take tests.
For the most part, I've been able to keep all my other classes under control. But when my mom saw that I was getting all A's and a D in math, she would get very angry with me. "I'll take your cell phone", she'd say, and she'd threaten to take away other privileges. I was almost in tears at the end of the marking period because my math grade didn't change.
One time I actually hid my report card from my mom until she started wondering why she hadn't received it in the mail. When she asked me about it, I couldn't lie, because I knew she would find it one way or another. So I handed over the report card: all A's and a D in Math. Before she could say anything, I told her how hard I'd tried, and that math just wouldn't click for me. She thanked me for being honest, and instead of yelling at me, she said I'd done a good job in the rest of my classes.
After our conversation, my math grade never did go up. But at least my mom wasn't breathing down my neck about it. I realized that if I had just talked to her about it she would have cut me slack a long time ago, and that a closed mouth doesn't get fed.
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