The Middle Child: Next Level

6: Julia

Although I love my mom so much, sometimes we see things differently. When I was younger she always spoiled me, I had her wrapped around my little finger. As I started getting older though, she started building this image of me and no matter what I do, I can't get rid of it. It started when I was around ten or eleven. She started buying me clothes that I didn't really like. I'm not trying to be picky but the clothes were always different from my style. Always nice dresses and heels.

What ten-year-old you know out here wearing heels, I mean what in the Preteens in Tiaras?

Now don't get me wrong, ya girl loves some nice dresses and heels but not at that age! And that's all she would get me. It seems like every other day was a new pair of heels or a new dress, like that's the only acceptable form of fashion the world will accept.

Then the next thing was my "interests", she started dragging me with her to art shows and art galleries. Even though I didn't really like going to the art shows, I have to thank her because without those I wouldn't have found my passion. Then it had just started being little things that she wanted me to do. After a while, you just get tired of arguing and resisting, so you just say yes and do it.

The next part of her image reconstruction was the worst one, education. Every parent should make sure that their child is getting the best education that they can, but my mom was at an entirely different level. She always made me take the hardest courses that the school offered. If it was viewed as an advanced class, I was in it. I was taking college credit classes as a freshman. And in her eyes, anything less than a 90% was an F in her eyes.

It was so hard to keep up with all of the work. I never had time for a social life or a love life. Heck, I barely had time to sleep. It was always wake up, go to school, come home and study, then go to bed. My life was like the movie Groundhog Day, I was living the same day over and over again. 5 am to 2 am almost every day. I still don't know how I was able to stay awake and pay attention in class with how little I slept. My saving grace were the days and weekends where I wasn't at art shows and galleries. I spent those days at my dad's house when he was in town for a couple of months on business trips and such. He never had the pre-designed image that my mom had for me. He let me dress how I wanted and express myself how I wanted. He was never too hard on me for my grades because he knew mom was hard enough on me for them already, and he knew I was hard on myself too.

When I needed help with my work I would always go to my dad because instead of yelling at me for struggling he would help me understand. Due to this, he was also completely supportive when I said that I wanted to be a fashion designer. My mom on the other hand, not so much. She wanted me to pursue a career path that can bring in a lot of money and one that can always guarantee me a job wherever I go. Her dream job for me was going into nursing and maybe even becoming a neurosurgeon. I don't know who told her that I would be a good neurosurgeon or good anything in the medical field for that matter but it definitely wasn't me.

In a sense, it's funny, because she isn't nearly as overbearing towards my sister as she is towards me. I guess things were different with me because my sister's dad wouldn't dare let my mom go as crazy with her as she is with me. You see my sister's dad, Dwayne, is this super math genius who made a fortune in the early 90s after creating his own educational game and selling it to a Japanese tech company. He even ended up getting a job with the company, but it was in Tokyo, so he and my mom moved to Japan. It was also at the same time they found out my Mom was pregnant with my sister, Kayla. They stayed in Tokyo for the majority of Mom's pregnancy, but momentarily came back to the states so that she could be born in the US, also so all of their friends and family could be around for the birth.

Afterwards they came back and stayed for about 10 years, Mom being a happy housewife and Dwayne being a mega successful Tech Innovator, creating new games and concepts for the company. You could say they were living the dream...until the turn of the century. That's when the company became obsolete, it couldn't compare to companies like Sony, Microsoft, or Apple anymore. So, the company got bought out by a bigger one and everyone was subsequently given the boot, with a nice cushion of a stipend to soften the blow. Dwayne, my mom, and Kayla moved back to the states, much to their family's satisfaction.