Is it a good advice?
I wrote this short story remembering all the seemingly perfect families I've met in my life.
They show a picture perfect family life but hide the struggles, heartache, compromises, and sacrifices they made to get there.
People are not perfect and we all come with a baggage. We can live a happy life or a create a chaotic life. It all depends on the choices we make
They show a picture perfect family life but hide the struggles, heartache, compromises, and sacrifices they made to get there.
People are not perfect and we all come with a baggage. We can live a happy life or a create a chaotic life. It all depends on the choices we make
Nancy arrives home from a long day at work. She kicks off
her high heels and walks into the kitchen. Bruce lights the candles on the dinner
table and embraces her in a warm hug. Her two girls, ages five and six, are
running from the playroom to greet her. Their handsome seventeen-year-old boy
looks up from his computer and smiles at her.
A beautiful picture, isn’t it? The man plays the role of the
happy househusband and the wife is the breadwinner. Nothing is wrong with that.
But, let’s just see how they got to this ideal picture of a happy home.
Bruce remembered a conversation he had with his father a
long time ago.
They were sitting at the kitchen table having a beer when he
was just a teenager. He felt so grown up and important because his father let him
drink a beer. He asked his father if he ever loved his mother. He had watched
their relationship since he was a small child, and he couldn’t sense any devotion
on his father’s part.
“She’s a dumb bitch. What’s there to love? But she’s a good
mother and a good provider. I find my love elsewhere, son. The home is for security
and comfort while I’m looking for a job,” he said, winking at Bruce. “She’s
well trained if you know what I mean,” he continued.
Bruce wanted his father’s approval desperately. He was the
role model for absentee fathers, but occasionally they had a moment together
when he felt some closeness to him. All his life he believed that his mother and,
as a matter of fact, every woman was just a meal ticket to an easy life. That’s
what he saw, and that’s what he learned. He thought about relationships rationally:
have fun with a girl but marry a steady woman on whom you can depend, as his
father said. He had many girls to have fun with, and when he was in his early twenties,
he began looking for a wife. He moved in and out of fleeting relationships, and
he was surprised in the beginning that after four or five months, the women
threw him out. They saw right through him and they refused to be used. He asked
his father about it.
“Son, you have to be smart. You can’t just sit at home watching
movies all day. Of course, they will find out you have no intention to work. You
must ‘fake it till you make it’ Take a job, do it for a couple of weeks, and
then get yourself fired. Find a way that makes it look like it wasn’t your
fault. Then you’re okay for a couple of months; they will leave you in peace to
look for another job,” his father advised him.
It worked for years, and he could stay in a relationship
longer and longer.
My published fiction, children's books, and audiobooks:
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