I used to think love meant approval.

If my mother smiled at me, I felt safe.If she frowned, my whole world trembled.

Growing up, I wasn’t the rebellious type. I didn’t sneak out at night. I didn’t talk back loudly. I didn’t fail my classes. In fact, I did everything I thought a “good daughter” was supposed to do. I studied hard. I came home early. I avoided trouble.

But no matter how hard I tried, I was never quite the daughter my mother wanted.

She never said it directly. She didn’t have to. It was in the comparisons.

Look at your cousin Linh. She’s already fluent in English.Your friend got first place again?”
“Why can’t you be more confident?”

Each sentence sounded harmless on its own. But together, they built a quiet storm inside me.

My mother was a strong woman. She had grown up poor, fought her way through university, and sacrificed her youth for stability. She believed in discipline. She believed in excellence. She believed that love meant pushing someone to be better.

I believed that love meant being accepted.

We lived under the same roof but spoke two different emotional languages.

When I was twelve, I brought home a report card with mostly A’s and one B. I was proud. I had stayed up late for weeks, memorizing formulas and essays until my eyes burned.

She looked at the B first.

What happened here?”

That was all she said. No congratulations. No smile.

I remember nodding silently while something inside me shrank.

From that moment on, achievements didn’t feel like victories. They felt like temporary shields. I wasn’t studying to learn anymore. I was studying to avoid disappointment.By the time I reached high school, I had mastered the art of pretending I was fine. I laughed with friends, posted smiling photos, talked about dreams confidently. But at home, I measured every word, every expression.

If I showed sadness, I was “too sensitiveIf I showed anger, I was “disrespectful.If I showed excitement about something she didn’t value, I was “immature.”

So I started showing nothing.

The biggest fight we ever had happened when I was eighteen.

I told her I wanted to study art.

She stared at me as if I had just confessed to a crime.

Art? What kind of future is that?” she asked sharply. “Do you think life is a joke?”

I tried to explain. I told her how drawing made me feel alive. How colors and shapes helped me express things I couldn’t say aloud. How I didn’t want to wake up every day feeling trapped in a career chosen by someone else.

She cut me off.

I didn’t sacrifice everything for you to chase unrealistic dreams.”

That sentence hit harder than any slap.

Sacrifice.

It was a word she used often. A reminder that my life was built on her suffering. A debt I could never fully repay.

I never asked you to sacrifice,” I whispered.

The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them.

Her face changed — not just anger, but hurt. Deep, wounded hurt.

You’re ungrateful,” she said quietly.

And just like that, we both became victims in the same room.

For weeks after that argument, we barely spoke. Meals were silent. Doors closed gently but firmly. My father tried to mediate, but he had always chosen peace over confrontation. He told me to understand her. He told her to give me time.

But understanding requires listening, and we were both too busy defending ourselves.

I ended up choosing a “safer” major — business administration. Not because I wanted to, but because I was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of being the source of her disappointment.

On the first day of university, I looked around the lecture hall and felt nothing. No excitement. No fear. Just emptiness.

I told myself this was maturity. That growing up meant letting go of childish dreams.

But the resentment didn’t disappear. It grew quietly.

I started staying out later. Not to party wildly, but to avoid going home. I picked up small freelance design jobs in secret, working late at night when everyone was asleep. Creating became my rebellion.

One evening, my mother found my sketchbook.

She flipped through the pages slowly. Portraits. Abstract emotions. Dark, chaotic lines mixed with soft, hopeful colors.

You still waste time on this?” she asked.

Something snapped inside me.

It’s not a waste!” I shouted, louder than I ever had before. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel like myself!”

The room fell silent.

She looked shocked — not at my words, but at my volume. I had always been the quiet one.

Why are you so dramatic?” she said after a pause.

Dramatic.

That word hurt because it made my feelings sound exaggerated, theatrical, invalid.

I’m not dramatic,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m just tired of never being enough.”

For the first time, tears filled my eyes in front of her — not quiet tears in my bedroom, but raw, uncontrollable ones.

I’ve been trying my whole life to be the daughter you want,” I continued. “But I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

She didn’t respond immediately.

And then something unexpected happened.

She cried too.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just silent tears sliding down her face.

I was scared,” she admitted. “I’m still scared.”

That was the first time she spoke about fear instead of expectations.

She told me about her childhood — about nights without enough food, about watching her own parents struggle, about promising herself that her children would never feel that instability.

To me, success means safety,” she said. “I didn’t want you to suffer like I did.”

And suddenly, our conflict looked different.

She wasn’t trying to control me because she didn’t love me. She was trying to control my future because she loved me too much — and feared the world too deeply.

But love mixed with fear can become suffocating.

I don’t need a perfect life,” I said softly. “I just need a chance to try.”

That night didn’t magically fix everything. We didn’t suddenly agree on my career path. We still argued. We still misunderstood each other.

But something shifted.

She started asking questions instead of giving commands.
I started explaining instead of exploding.

It took years — real years — for us to rebuild trust.

I eventually transitioned into a creative field after graduation. It wasn’t easy. There were months of financial instability, moments of doubt, nights when I questioned if she had been right all along.

But when I held my first exhibition — a small one in a local café — she came.

She stood quietly in front of one painting for a long time. It was a portrait of a woman made of cracked glass, with light shining through the fractures.

“Is this about me?” she asked gently.

“It’s about us,” I replied.

She didn’t fully understand my art. I don’t think she ever will. But she has learned to say, “I’m proud of you,” even when she’s uncertain.

And I have learned that parents are not born knowing how to love perfectly. They love with the tools they were given — sometimes outdated, sometimes flawed.

Family drama doesn’t always come from betrayal or betrayal alone. Sometimes it grows from expectations, fear, and unspoken wounds passed down through generations.

I am no longer trying to be the daughter my mother wanted.

And she is no longer trying to turn me into her unfinished dream.

We are learning to see each other not as roles — “mother” and “daughter” — but as two women shaped by different times, different fears, different hopes.

Love, I’ve realized, is not about becoming someone else’s ideal.

It’s about being brave enough to say,
“This is who I am,”
and patient enough to say,
“I’m still learning who you are.”

Our home is still imperfect. We still argue about small things. She still worries too much. I still get defensive too quickly.

But now, when she smiles at me, I don’t feel like I’ve passed a test.

I feel seen.

And for the first time in my life, that feels like enough.