Double Standards Rule the World
Part of the series “Things my parents taught me”
I want to thank my parents for being so incredibly not perfect.
Only now I started to appreciate the way they treated me when I was small. After childhood like that, the rest of life feels like a vacation.
Once you make peace with your past, nothing can stop you. When it’s impossible to forgive and forget, I just turn my traumatic childhood adventures into life lessons that I am grateful for.
I was the source of my mom’s greatest embarrassments. Especially in school. She was an English teacher and couldn’t stand the fact that I had below-average marks in my English class.
The final test was just around the corner. One evening she came back home and handed me over the piece of paper. ‘ These are the answers for the final test. Learn them by heart and don’t show them to anyone,’ she said with the whole seriousness.
‘Where did you get the answers?’ I wondered.
‘Your teacher gave me them,’ she replied.
One week before the final test it turned out that I had to join our school sports team and couldn’t take the final test.
‘ These are the answers for the final test. Learn them by heart and don’t show them, anyone,’ said I with whole seriousness to my best friend.
She nodded and smiled.
I remember coming back from the sporting event all happy and relax. Not knowing what is waiting for me at home.
My best friend gave the answers to all the students in her study group. Their teacher suspected that something was wrong when all students got high marks with the same correct answers. She started the investigation and soon it all led her to me, my mom and my teacher.
I’ve never experienced such a contrast drop in the emotions. One moment I was excited about adventures that I had at the sports event and the other moment I wanted to die. My mom was outrageously pissed off. It was like the end of times. The darkest hour of my universe.
‘Next time you have an English class you will stand up and apologize to your English teacher,’ said my mom. I promised her to do so.
It was only 10 minutes left before the end of the English class. I felt my classmates' heavy glances on me. I knew I had to stand up and apologize. But I couldn’t. The bell rang and everyone left the room. I stood up and squeezed the “I am sorry” whisper out of my lungs.
‘Please leave,’ said teacher.
I left unforgiven.
For many years I was ashamed of this story. I used it to punish myself and prove that I am a horrible person. All bad things that happened to me over the years I explained by that karma hits me with its boomerang. After all, nothing bad happened to me if I wouldn’t be a bad guy in the first place.
Recently I started to ask myself a new type of questions?
Why didn't my mom have to apologize to the teacher in front of the whole class for giving me the answers?
Why didn't my teacher have to apologize to students in front of the whole school for giving my mom the answers?
We all: my teacher, my mom, and I followed the same logic. Why did only I get punished in the end?
I guess you know the answer.
This article is part of the series “Things my parents taught me” scattered across Medium. I encourage you to reach out to your traumatic childhood stories and think what valuable lessons did you learn and how did you benefit from it.
Check out other stories of the series “Things my parents taught me”.
