The Weight of Being a Good Daughter

Every parent wants a good daughter, one who loves them unconditionally, one who respects their decisions, and one who is always honest. There is a great weight that drags down a young girl to represent the perfect image to her parents. Everyone makes mistakes, especially daughters when they strive to fit in a perfect little box that their mother and father have decorated with silky ribbons of expectations. Ribbons are light and gentle, used to embellish the prettiest gifts but when double knotted into a bow they are so appealing to unwrap and pry out the contents. This box is weighed down to the ground with intangible hopes. Those hopes are the weight that is placed on every girl to be a good daughter. The ribbons are so tempting to let go, as each girl turns into a woman, but they are imperative to hold on to to maintain a good relationship with your parents. 

Loving your parents unconditionally might not seem apparent on the hardest of nights when you’re screaming and crying about a broken promise. When it feels like you have been tied down to the house unable to leave because your parents have forbidden you to make yet another dumb mistake. Loving your parents unconditionally is easier for some than others as every girl has formed a different relationship with their parents, but it is way harder when you do not see them often. Distance slowly tends to tuck away that box of expectations in a dark corner of a closet and just when the ribbon begins to untie, the weight of the box causes it to fall making a great noise reminding you to love your parents no matter what; and so you do. For once you appreciate that box and tie the ribbon really neatly and hold it for a while. 

Respecting parents’ decisions is hard because every girl reaches an age when they think that they have their mind made up and that they know what is best for them. You’re ready to take a pair of scissors to the delicate ribbon and cut it, you’re eager to watch all the expectations spill out. And, as you reflect on those expectations, you notice that they are not just ideals; they are goals that show unconditional love in reciprocity. So you pick them up and return them into the box. As the expectations are put in one by one the box becomes heavier and heavier. This is when every girl thinks of a time when they did not respect their parents decisions and it did not turn out the way they planned. Like the one time you snuck out and then did not have a ride back home. The feeling of being stranded somewhere you did not recognize made you think that you should’ve respected your mom‘s decision to stay home that night. You continue to pile the expectations into the box until you can barely close it and you need the ribbon to keep it shut.

Being honest induces fear. This fear creeps in from the disappointment that might be placed upon you should you be honest about your mistakes. Honesty has a weight of itself and sometimes it outweighs the box of expectations that you now cherish too much to break. Every daughter has kept secrets from their parents; whether you wish they could have helped you with every problem, sometimes you are scared to deceive them. Sometimes you feel like you lie to protect them and assure them of your safety. Usually most girls manage to sort out their problems, but should something happen, you have to comprehend that the weight of your box will be piled on to your parents and they will be left to carry it or  it will be passed down to your daughter with a bow with frayed edges. Fortunately, part of parenting is forgiveness, just like you will, your father and mother will love you unconditionally making honesty the key to any good relationship. 

“[When] You’re ready to take a pair of scissors to the delicate ribbon and cut it, you’re eager to watch all the expectations spill out. And as you read them you notice that they are not just ideals; they are goals that show unconditional love in reciprocity.”

From loving your parents unconditionally, respecting your parents’ decisions, to being honest, the small box you carry to be the best possible daughter becomes heavy enough to have to drag around. It requires great care as sometimes you break a little bit of it and you have to fix it before it is too late. This pressure of being a good daughter has, however, brought me to where I am today. Had I not had that guidance weighing me down, I would have made countless mistakes. However, some of my mistakes have caused the ribbons to fray little by little over the years. With the distance between my parents and me, being a good daughter, creating a good relationship with them becomes even heavier on both sides as every daughter needs a father and a mother as long as they are fortunate enough to have them. One day I might have a daughter and her box might inherit my frayed ribbon; however her task will be to create a pretty box filled with healthy expectations and make a pretty bow out of my frayed ribbons. Perfection should never be attained but letting go of the box however frayed the ribbons might be is just as damaging, as a french proverb says: “Unstringing the bow does not cure the wound.” “Défaire le nœud ne cure pas la plaie.”