Taking Hold of Your Own Future
Should your mother be able to determine your future even though she is the one that is
raising you? The answer is no; your future is yours to determine and grab. No one else chooses
your path in life because if it isn’t something you choose yourself, you will live a miserable life.
We aren’t put on this earth to live at the hands of our mother. In today’s society, many children
face parental pressure where their mothers choose a path in life for their children and control
their children’s every choice. Eventually, the kids will realize that this isn’t what they want and
that it isn’t the right direction that they want their life to go in. The concept of a controlling
mother is very common today in many households and is an incredibly toxic environment for
many children. Many fight back against their mothers wanting to make choices for themselves,
but it often results in many struggles and the loss of their mothers on the way. Either through
abandoning their mothers as they won’t ever see your perspective or the mothers abandoning
you. We can see this theme across many readings like the fairy tale “The Crystal ball,” the show
“The Promise Neverland,” and the book “American Panda.”

We can see this struggle in the Fairy Tale ”The Crystal Ball” from the Complete Folk &
Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. The Fairy Tale starts with talking about an enchantress and
her three sons. As time passes, the enchantress grows more and more fearful of the possibility
that the three sons will want to steal her powers. This led the enchantress to transform her sons
into animals that dwell in a certain part of the earth. The eldest son turned into an eagle, fated to
dwell in the mountains, and the middle son became a whale, fated to dwell in the oceans. These
two sons were only allowed in their human forms for two hours daily. This shows the mother, the
enchantress, deciding her son’s purpose or path in life, which for the oldest son is to be an eagle
and for the second oldest to be a whale. The youngest son seeing that his brothers are subjected
to such restrictions, realizes that he does not want his future to end up like his brothers, decided
by their mother, and runs away to grab ahold of his future. The cruel reality that the only choice
the youngest son had to resort to choosing his path in life was to run away from home and not
just to be able to reason with his mother is outrageous. Motherly figures are supposed to be one
of comfort and security, but it shows the reality of such households where mothers are too
controlling and fearful. The youngest son runs away and hears about a King’s daughter that is
imprisoned in the Castle of the Golden Sun, and whoever frees the King’s daughter may take her
hand in marriage. It was heard that many youths had died in the attempt to save this princess
Twenty-three, in fact, and only one more person may attempt this trial before no more can. He
searches for this castle day and night to no avail. He then comes across two giants disputing over
a wishing cap that grants any wish of the wearer. He tricks the giants by saying that he will wear
it and whoever makes it to him first in a race wins, but instead of having the giants race, he uses
the cap for himself and wishes to be teleported to the Castle of the Golden Sun, and he is
teleported immediately in which he is greeted with a withered princess who was said to be the
most beautiful. She informs him that to restore her beauty and free her, he must claim the crystal
ball and present it to the enchanter then will her beauty be restored. She warns him that it is very
dangerous and someone so young shouldn’t face such danger in; he states, “Nothing can keep me
from doing it, but tell me what I must do.”(650) This one line said by the youth depicts the
desperation and the great lengths in which he will go through to defy his mothers will and to
escape the future that his mother has chosen for him. This next part shows the journey he goes
through to achieve his dream and can be a symbol of the pressure and challenges that children
face when going against their very own person that raised them and looked up to them when they
were young. The son proceeds to take on the challenge, which is to slay the bull, and when the
bull is slain, a fiery bird will arise from it carrying an egg that contains the crystal ball, but that
crystal ball cannot fall onto the ocean or burn in the fire, or it will lose its effects. The son slays
the bull, and as the fiery bird flies away with the help of his eldest brother the eagle strikes down
the bird. The fiery bird drops the egg and it cracks open but unfortunately the fiery bird burns the
ground than with the help of his second oldest, the whale puts out the fire with a huge wave. The
son claims the crystal ball unharmed and presents it to the king and can marry the princess and
thus claiming the throne. In the Japanese animated version of this Fairy Tale which is based of
this book with the claiming of the crystal ball the son frees his two brothers of their mother’s
curse and also “slays” her in the process which symbolizes them achieving their dream and
deciding their future which I enjoy a lot more as sometimes choosing your own path will lead to
sacrifices.

We can also see another instance of a mother raising her children to fulfill a purpose that
she has already decided for them, resulting in the kids fighting back to carve out their future in a
show called “The Promised Neverland” by Kaiu Shirai. In the show we follow a large group of
children with many names that I cannot list all of here, but we do follow three main characters by
the name Emma, Norman, and Ray, who are the oldest of 38 children and the smartest. These
children are raised on a farm by a single mother named Isabella, but it isn’t any normal farm.
This farm is where they raise the smartest children to be fed to monsters as smarter brains taste
better. These 38 children are unaware of that but one day a child by the name of Conny is ready
to be shipped out and eaten by monsters. Emma and Norman follow her because Conny forgot
her bunny and finds Conny dead as she was consumed by a monster. This is the moment where
Emma and Norman find out that they are being raised by their mother just to be fed to monsters
and that they had no future to begin with just the purpose that their mother Isabella is raising
them for. The symbol of death being the endgame of what their mother is raising them for
symbolizes the future that the children themselves don’t want to end up with or they will live a
life of sadness as they couldn’t chase their own dreams. So in order to escape this farm Emma,
Norman, and Ray devise a plan. Note that these children are only twelve and younger as the
oldest a child can get eaten is twelve. They are at the prime age of puberty and the author setting
the story around kids this old shows the growth of kids and realizing that they have their own
will and ability to choose their future. The act of coming up with a plan to escape their mother is
saddening as the children trusted her. The children face many challenges as later on Ray is
revealed to be a double agent but is more supportive of escaping. Norman sacrifices himself by
letting himself be shipped off and eaten in order for the plan to not be discovered. Ray plans to
sacrifice himself as well but is stopped by Emma. The sacrificing of close friends is similar to the
cutting of ties with your mother in order to chase your dream. It is revealed that Ray is actually
Isabella’s son and that weakened her will to stop Emma, Ray and 13 other children from
escaping. The difference here from the Fairy Tale is that the Mother came to an acceptance that
the children will not follow her plan.

Lastly, I will talk about a great book that I am sure many East-Asian Americans can
relate to which is “American Panda” by Gloria Chao which depicts a Taiwanese girl named Mei
and her strict and overbearing mother. Mei’s mother already has a predetermined future for Mei
which is for her to become a Doctor, marry a successful Taiwanese man, and produce a ton of
babies. Except Mei wants the complete opposite of that, she hates germs, is in love with a
Japanese boy, and loves dancing. Mei is reluctant to inform her mother of what she truly wants
as she understands how much her mother has sacrificed for her to live such a lavish life with
being able to go to MIT and being able to eat rich and healthy foods. Now this brings up the
main question: are our mothers allowed to choose our future even though she raised us? Mei is
living proof of strict Chinese and Asian households as we are highly pressured to make them
proud and achieve the goals and dreams that they have set for us. Also it does not help that Mei’s
brother Xing was disowned for marrying the wrong woman. Mei attempts to live a double life
with one where she does what she enjoys and the other just to make her mother proud. Mei says
“Dance was the one place I truly belonged, where age, race, looks, and intelligence didn’t matter.
I had pretended to continue dancing for my parents’ sakes – partly to earn brownie points but
mostly because I was scared if they knew just how much I loved it, they would take it away.
Dancers don’t make money, Mei.”(Chao, Gloria. American Panda. Simon Pulse, 2018.) Mei
lives under so much pressure that she can’t even express joy doing something she loves. She
attempts to visit her brother and talk to him and through the talk she had with him she realizes
maybe it isn’t so wrong to confront her mother but she is still afraid. Seeking your own
happiness should always be the priority even if your mother won’t approve. This is a very
common problem within East Asian households and can lead to many depressed children.

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