Chương 13: Sylvia
Joann could hear the sound of stern lecture coming from within even before she stepped through the door.
"Have you no shame?! A respectable young woman frolicking until so late at night with…" The voice Joann recognized as Mrs. Xu's paused as if it was a great trouble for her to vocalize such a demeaning action, "a strange man!"
"Grandma, he is not a strange man…" A familiar voice retorted weakly.
Hearing this caused Joann to flare up immediately. She burst through the door and saw Mrs. Xu lecturing a young woman who was kneeling on the living room floor.
Joann rushed to the young woman's aid immediately, yelling, "Mother, what are you doing to Sylvia?"
Yes, the young woman in question was Mrs. Xu's granddaughter and Joann's only daughter, Sylvia Xu.
The young woman was in her early twenties and was already working. She had always been a precocious child. She skipped several grades in high school and so she graduated college and entered the work force several years earlier than most of her peers.
When Sylvia stood beside her mother, people always mistook them for sisters rather than mother and daughter. This was on account of two things, the fact that Joann had Sylvia when she was still very young as well as the pricey beauty care that was necessary for celebrity of Joann's caliber.
Unlike her glamorous mother, Sylvia wore little to no make-up and had her hair cut in a severe bop on the account of her job as a reporter. Her occupation demanded that she had a clean style that was easy to get into.
Mrs. Xu turned to glare at Joann, who came to interrupt her lecture, "What I am doing? I am teaching her a valuable life lesson on how to conduct herself properly, a motherly duty that you have so willingly forwent."
"Be that as it may, why are you having her kneel on the floor? Is this the 19th century?" Joann countered as she pulled Sylvia up from the floor, "This is not the way to teach the children, trampling all over their dignity is not the way to go!"
Sylvia resisted her pull and said, "Mom, I am fine. Grandma is just worried about me. There is no need to make this a bigger problem than it currently is."
"Oh, now you want to be the mother?! Where were you all those years when Xu Jing had to raise Sylvia alone?!" Mrs. Xu chimed in and shot a warning glare at Sylvia to freeze her into place, before adding, "Speaking of dignity, with the way she is conducting herself, she has already lost all of it, what is even left for me to trample?!"
"Grandma, that is very unfair. Mom has to work while I was growing up but that does not mean she does not care about me. I understand her difficulties and I do not blame her. I know she loves me," This time Sylvia came to Joann's rescue.
"Mother, what are you talking about?! So she came home a little bit late, what is the big deal? Is this kind of primitive punishment warranted?" Challenged Joann.
"Came home late every other day of the month and sometimes not even coming home at all! She even lied that she was staying at a girlfriend's house but it was a strange man all along! Is that proper conduct for a respectable young lady?! For shame, for shame!" Sighed Mrs. Xu as she shook her head despondently.
"Grandma, I have already told you he is not some strange man. He is my friend, although I suppose you could call him a close friend…"
"Mother, see! She has already explained herself. It is just a friend of hers. You cannot impose your outdated views on Sylvia, the times have moved on. If anything, this is more your fault for refusing to change your views than hers!"
"Mom, that's taking it a bit too far. Grandma is just looking out for me, there is definitely nothing wrong with that…"
Joann shot Sylvia a look and the latter shut up immediately. Sylvia who was half-lifted off the floor decided upon a compromise and slid silently onto the sofa. She was going to sit this one out then.
"Do not try to turn this on me, if anything, the fault falls on your shoulder because she turns out this way because you were not around to present the girl with a good example to follow."
As all fights tended to, the argument soon moved away from its original point of contention and it devolved into a fight for the sake of a fight.
"Mother, you suspect my parenting skills but you have not done so well for yourself either. It was because you were and are such a helicopter mother that Xu Jing turns out to be such a spineless man, afraid of anything and everything!"
The term helicopter parent was a derogatory term used to mock mother or parent who refused to have their children leave their side and swiveled around them like an actual helicopter.
"I should have known you would not the hardship and responsibility of a mother since you were raised without one to begin with. To stress what I have said earlier, this is why Sylvia turns out like this. She is going to grow up to became an insolent and rude wild child, not unlike yourself if myself and Xu Jing had not stepped in!"
Sylvia did try to step in to mediate the argument but she was either shot a warning glare by either one of the women or was told directly, "Shush, this does not concern you!"
She too was feeling quite helpless being stuck in the middle.
Before the fight could have the chance to escalate further, i.e. before the two elder women turned physical, Sylvia decided to jump up from the sofa and shout at the top of her lungs apropos to nothing.
"CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILDREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!"
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