Dear Mom,

Before I begin telling you what I’m going to tell you, I want to say thanks. Thank you for everything you have done for me. For being there for me when I most needed you. Especially when I was sick, in school performances, and more.

However, sometimes when I’m with you, I feel like you’re just looking for something to yell at me about, like when I clean my room. You’re just always telling me that you’re going to go check on it, and when you go see it you’re always yelling at me, that I didn’t clean it right or that it’s not clean enough. Even though I try my best. Another time was when you and dad had to go to work. You left me babysitting, and you told me before you left to clean the house and take care of my sisters. When you got home, your face didn’t look so proud. I was scared, and I felt like you were going to get a belt and hit me as hard as you could. You asked me if I had actually cleaned the house, because it looked like I didn’t. I tried my best. I cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and living room, and still put my baby sister to sleep and told A to take a shower.

I know that being a mom is not easy and I respect that. I know you’re trying to show us how, because soon we are going to get married and have kids and we are going to do what you’re teaching us now. But like I said, I try my best, doing what you tell me do and even when you don’t tell me. 

Whenever you start yelling at me for something, there is always a time, either when you’re done or in the middle of yelling at me, where a part of my heart hurts. And when we go to bed I feel so unloved, and then I start crying, and little by little I end up bawling.

You know how you always tell me you’re tired of telling me what to do? Maybe you shouldn’t tell me anything for a day. You can take the day off and I will do your job, but you can’t tell me anything. Maybe you can go out with my dad or something, but take a day off and I will do your job.

Your daughter,
Dayana, age 14