Imagine you are twenty seven years old. You have lived apart from your parents since you were eighteen. You have managed to arrange your own transport, find your own accomodation, pay your own bills, feed yourself, get into shouting matches with the local yobs and backpacked across Europe on your own. Now imagine that once you return home, your parents (especially your mother) think you are no more than the callow eighteen year old who left all those years ago and insist that if left to my own devices, I would starve to death in my own filth or be raped, robbed and beaten on the 'mean' streets of KL (not necessarily in that order).
There's nothing that makes me feel more juvenile than when my own mother treats me that way.
My parents were not content with giving me a ride to Bukit Bintang, they insisted on personally accompanying me and dropping me off in front of my friends. When going out with a guy friend, they can't seem to get it in their heads that he is only a friend and not my eternal soulmate.
"No. You just don't know your way around KL anymore. You haven't been back home in more than a year," my mum says when I wanted to borrow the car to go to The Curve to meet some friends.
"But, I used to go to 1 Utama all the time! It was my tempat bertendang! The Curve is just a stone's throw away from it," I said, pulling at my hair.
"Yes, but things have changed since you've been away. Wait till your sister comes back from Australia next week and she can take you," my mum replied, oblivious to my hair-pulling antics.
What?!!? Maryam? She's six years younger than me!!!
Oh, the humiliation! I get punished just because she used to go everywhere all the time and I was the good girl who stayed at home all the time. This cannot be.
My sister got a kick out of this once she heard. She smirked and said, "Mum trusts me because I'm streetwise!"
Streetwise my ass.
There's nothing that makes me feel more juvenile than when my own mother treats me that way.
My parents were not content with giving me a ride to Bukit Bintang, they insisted on personally accompanying me and dropping me off in front of my friends. When going out with a guy friend, they can't seem to get it in their heads that he is only a friend and not my eternal soulmate.
"No. You just don't know your way around KL anymore. You haven't been back home in more than a year," my mum says when I wanted to borrow the car to go to The Curve to meet some friends.
"But, I used to go to 1 Utama all the time! It was my tempat bertendang! The Curve is just a stone's throw away from it," I said, pulling at my hair.
"Yes, but things have changed since you've been away. Wait till your sister comes back from Australia next week and she can take you," my mum replied, oblivious to my hair-pulling antics.
What?!!? Maryam? She's six years younger than me!!!
Oh, the humiliation! I get punished just because she used to go everywhere all the time and I was the good girl who stayed at home all the time. This cannot be.
My sister got a kick out of this once she heard. She smirked and said, "Mum trusts me because I'm streetwise!"
Streetwise my ass.
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