How My Parents Met: High School Romance
by Naomi Chapman
My mum and dad met in high school as 16 year olds with no idea of what repercussions would ripple out of their future relationship. As any teenage romance goes, mum and dad crushed hard on each other before finally succumbing to peer pressure on making things official. Things were as normal as in any high school relationship – drama, fights, extreme emotions but also innocence, love and pure need of giving and getting support from someone going through the same life hurdles of finally realizing that the time to remain a child was soon going to come to an end.
There is a lot of high school drama that constantly surrounded their relationship but my mum and dad found themselves coming back to each other despite all the differences. It was a turbulent relationship glued solely by love, fondness and acceptance.
Like any dreamy teen couple my mum and dad imagined a future together not knowing that they’d be in for it sooner than they were realizing at that point in time. After taking the relationship to the farthest level that they could both emotionally and otherwise, they realized that a single night resulted in my mum getting pregnant at the age of 17.
My mum is ambitious, hardworking and intelligent; she is someone I look up to because she embodies everything that I want to be one day. She had me at a point of time in her life when she could’ve been working hard on herself instead of working hard on me. However, with the support and love of her family and my dad, who worked part time to earn money and support my mum and me, my mum and dad were able to stand up, raise me and do so without being dependent on anyone else. They raised me with love and affection in a family that provided me all that I needed and never made me feel like I couldn’t achieve something.
My mum had to battle the curious eyes of many as she walked around stores, my dad had to answer to every stranger who thought that I was his cute baby stranger and they both had to struggle a lot with the judgments of society but never in all these years did they ever make me feel like I or they deserved anything less than the world. Because, at the end of the day it is not our actions that define us or the obstacles that life throws at us but what we make of them and my mum and dad made nothing but the most by bringing me up in a cloud of love, support, understanding and encouragement.