surviving your report card

Yes, it's early summer, bringer of indistinguishable weekdays, 4th of July anticipation, electric fans and...

END OF YEAR REPORT CARDSSSSS!!

End of year report cards are no different from regular report cards, except they're slightly worse.  This  brand of grade-listing includes every single exam grade, cumulative GPAs, and total everything.  It's all on the table - and addressed to your parents.  We children are presented with the classic report card situation, at this point, which may entail our obedience to the report card and its wishes.  We hand it to our parents.

If you're like me, this is kind of like showing your parents your paycheck.  It's my business, not theirs.  And yet, they're concerned for me.  They are my legal guardians, after all.  Almost everything that's my business is also theirs.

AND YET, it's like... it's like...

"Honey, do you really make this little money?"

"Would you consider maybe getting another job, to help you with your first?"

"I don't think your passions are paying off."

This metaphor mostly just helps justify my unexplainable anger whenever my parents are dissatisfied with my report card which, if you were wondering by now, is not really that bad.  Never once did I proclaim, "I've stopped caring" this year.

So why do we get so angry when our parents speak wearily of our grades, as if our failure was making them uncomfortable?  

Is it an independence thing?

Do we feel insecure about our grades, and plainly want others to not see them?

I don't know.  I do know that my discomfort on the whole situation evaporated after my dad left the house for a bike ride.  It's gone now, only to come again next year.  

I also know that in the end, my grades will effect only me, and though my parent's emotions cushion what hazy future lies ahead, the grades will determine more than anyone's feelings will.