I Am Proud of You by Manal

I Am Proud of You by Manal - October 2022 Scholarship Essay

Praise is the Achilles heel of the human race because every person craves it and it has the power to mold your entire life. The essential type of praise is the validation you get from your parents as a child. A child comes home from school and the first thing they do is show their parents everything they accomplished throughout the day in the hope of getting a compliment. The result of a simple “I am proud of you” is an encouragement to keep doing better. These early interactions have the ability to determine what type of person you will become. Receiving too much praise can result in a cocky and entitled human being but what about receiving too little? Imagine a child that tries their best to please their parents but was never given encouragement. That child grows up belittling their accomplishments, questioning their self-worth, and discovering other harmful ways to find validation.

As a young girl, my parents set certain expectations of me, from the people I choose to hang out with to the amount of food I put on my plate. My parent's approval meant a lot to me because I respected the sacrifices they made to have the life I have today. But that is where the relationship between my parents and I end. My parents have never been the loving type of parents, but similar to any child I yearned for their appreciation. However, when I would run up to my mother to show the test I aced I was told this was not an accomplishment but merely a bare minimum. In some ways, this pushed me to do my best in everything, but when it felt like I was never going to make them proud, it started affecting the way I viewed my self-worth when I witnessed other families celebrating both minute and significant accomplishments. My parents were also fond of comparing my success and failure to others. Very soon I was stuck with the notation that I was not good enough for them or anything. I believed I was never as smart as my classmate, never as pretty as my cousin, or never as well-rounded as my brother. I went on into my high school years craving to feel appreciated and ended up turning to boys, partying, and drugs to fulfill my desire to feel seen. It very quickly turned into a detrimental lifestyle, but that all changed when I gave purpose to my education.

In my senior year when my classmates were busy applying for colleges, I missed the deadlines because my parents kicked me out of the house for getting involved with a boy they did not approve of. Then the time came when everyone was discussing what colleges they got accepted into and I witnessed the people I grew up with moving onto the next chapter of their lives while I was being left behind. This is the moment I realized the hole I was digging for myself and if I did not get out soon, the consequences would leave me regretful. I slowly started organizing goals for myself and I was able to transform myself as a student. Balancing my social and academic life, studying for tests, taking notes, and asking more questions earned me respect from my peers and teachers but what I got most out of it was the sense of pride I felt for myself. For the first time, I was able to tell myself “I am proud of you!”. I no longer craved that validation from others because I knew I was doing my best.

My education has now become so crucial to me, it has become my source of respect, dignity, and pride. Being able to reach my academic goals was the pat on the back I never received from my parents. I will forever use education as my motivation to be successful in this life and one day have my own child run up to me and hand me the test they aced so I could hang it up on the fridge. Even though I was a child that never felt like they were ever good enough, I used my education as an opportunity to transform myself into my best version. That is what education means to me.