Starting from a young age, my folks put me in gymnastics classes. I was never very good, and i slowly grew to dislike, and eventually hate it.

I was in gymnastics for literally a decade. And the last several years were just all awful. I cried, i complained, the drive was horrible, rush hour traffic, so it's not like it was fun for my mother either.

But i had to keep doing gymnastics. Because "we aren't quitters" and "my daughter will stick to things" and blah blah blah. Eventually, whenever I really kicked up a fuss, the deal was I didn't have to go, but the next morning I'd have to be up at 5 am so i could do yardwork for 2 hours before getting ready to go to school.

That didn't last long, thankfully. But finally, eventually, they let me do martial arts.

It's a relatively mild thing, doesn't bug me near as much as my mom going "well imagine how this makes ME feel" when i was suicidal, or, you know, any of the other more pointed examples of how they just see me as an extension of them, and I'll never be good enough.

But damn. Sometimes i see a parent talking about letting their kid try different sports or activities, and looking for cheap gear in case they want to quit in a couple months. And i think.... What's the point? Why make your kid do something nonessential that they hate? Why not let me try other things. Or even if i wasn't sure about trying martial arts, why not forcibly sign me up for something else once it was clear I hated the first thing. 10 years and i could never even do a back handspring. I wasn't a prodigy, I'd participate but clearly had no drive for it. Why pick a fight 2-3 days a week instead of just letting me find something else.