FRACTURE

This night feels heavy. Everything around me is still and silent. I can only hear the ceiling fan and a physics lecture playing on my screen—one I’m forcing myself to watch for the final exam starting on the 22nd of this month. I think a faint bit of noise is also slipping through the gaps of the door from the neighboring apartment.

I can already tell I’m not going to get the result they expect in the final. I’m not good at this “studying” thing—at least not as good as they expect me to be. We tend to expect too much from others while failing to provide the same effort ourselves. To me, it feels strange to demand something from someone I couldn’t do myself. Because then what happens if they ask, “Why are you telling me to do this when you couldn’t do it yourself?”

If you’ve never studied science, how can you expect your kids to get full marks in it? It’s good that they might “want” to go into that field, but I would still hesitate to confidently teach them scientific facts or mathematical equations I never truly learned myself—let alone pressure or “blackmail” them into being top of the class.

I don’t feel stressed about my grades at all—even if the results are bad. What I do feel is sadness when I look at their faces—not because they’re angry about my performance, but because of how and blindly they’re trapped in this education system.

But then I correct myself when I look at other families. They seem the same. Many want their children to become doctors, even though they themselves don’t understand what a cell looks like.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying an uneducated or less privileged parent can’t wish for their children to be well-educated. That’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is that forcing someone down a path you regret not taking yourself mostly doesn’t lead to anything good. At the very least, try to understand what your child actually wants. You can’t fulfill your dreams through your child’s future. You both have different lives. Their life can’t be a continuation of yours.