Written by 16-year-old Meher for TeenBook’s My Diary column, this piece captures the struggle of wanting your parents to understand you, and the hope that honest, calmer conversations can bridge the gap between their world and yours.

Honestly, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this out loud or screamed it inside my head. It usually happens after yet another conversation with my parents that ends in a lecture, a misunderstanding, or sometimes just silence. Every time I try to talk to them about what I’m feeling, it somehow turns into something else. One moment I’m just saying I’m tired, and the next they’re telling me I’m lazy or wasting time. The conversation derails, and the real reason I started talking just… vanishes.

After a while, I started avoiding these conversations altogether. Not because I didn’t want to talk, but because I wanted to avoid the drama that followed. But here’s the thing, as teenagers, we do need to talk to our parents. We need support, we need someone to tell us that it’s okay to be confused or tired or unsure. We need their affirmations. But whenever we try, something goes wrong. It’s like our words and their meanings get lost in translation.

When I say, “I’m tired,” I don’t mean I’m physically lazy. I mean I’m mentally exhausted, with school, friends, choices, expectations, and sometimes even with myself. When I ask for privacy or space, I’m not hiding anything; I just need time to be alone with my thoughts. But it somehow becomes a question of trust. And avoiding them doesn’t help either. It leaves me with guilt. Like I’m letting them down. Like they’re angry at me. And slowly, the frustration and guilt mix together and make me feel like I’m not enough. Like I’ll never be good enough in their eyes.

But deep down, I know they aren’t wrong either.

They grew up in a completely different world. One without constant pings from social media, fewer choices to make, and fewer people to compare themselves to. They had struggles too, just of a different kind. Maybe that’s why it’s hard for them to understand what it’s like to be us, trying to find ourselves in a world that keeps changing every second. They didn’t have to make five life decisions by the age of 17 or live under the constant pressure to ‘do more’ and ‘be more.’

Sometimes I feel like they want to help, they just don’t know how. And we need help too, but not in the way they’re used to giving it. So when they check our phones or tell us we’re on the wrong track, it feels like an attack. And we start saying “It’s alright” even when it isn’t, just to end the conversation.

And the gap gets wider.

But I don’t think it has to stay this way forever. We’re not against each other — we just see things differently. Same world, just looking at it from different sides. 

And maybe the only way to come closer is to start talking again. Like really talking. Not arguing. Not saying “you don’t get me.” Just calmly explaining what’s on our mind. And actually listening too (even if it’s kinda hard). We can also try saying things in a way they’ll understand like writing it down, talking when things are chill, or even sending them a meme or video that can sometimes explain what we feel better than we can.

It won’t be perfect. It won’t be instant. But it’s a start.
Because I know, even if they see south and I see north, we’re still looking at the same sky.

And that has to count for something.

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