The Day Mother Cried
Coming home from school that dark winter’s day so long ago, I was filled with anticipation. I had a new issue of my favorite sports magazine under my arm. Dad was at work, my sister was away, and Mother wouldn’t be home from her new job for an hour.
I was shocked into stillness by what I saw . Mother pulled into a tight ball with her face in her hands. She was crying. I had never seen her cry.
I approached cautiously and touched her shoulder. “Mother?” I said. “What’s happened?”
She took a long breath and managed a weak smile. “It’s nothing, really. I’m going to lose this new job. I can’t type fast enough.”
“But you’ve only been there three for days,” I said. “You’ll catch on.” I was repeating a line she had spoken to me a hundred times when I was having trouble learning or doing something important to me. She sobbed in silence .
I felt helpless and out of place. At the age of 16 I still assumed Mother could do anything. To provide enough income for my college two years later, Mother was crazy for ways to save money.
A few months ago, Mother arrived home with an old typewriter. It skipped between certain letters. “That’s all we can afford,” Mother said. “It’s good enough to learn on.” And from that day on, immediately after dinner, Mother would disappear into her sewing room to practice. The slow tap, tap, tap went on some nights until midnight. On Monday, she got a job as a typewriter at a radio station. I was not the least bit surprised but she was excited. But on Tuesday Mother looked drawn. I didn’t care honestly.
My shock and embarrassment at finding Mother in tears on Wednesday showed how little I understood the pressures on her. Sitting beside her on the couch, I began very slowly to understand.
“I guess we all have to fail sometimes,” Mother said quietly. I could sense her pain. I reached out and put my arms around her.
A week later Mother took a job selling dry goods at half the salary the radio station had offered. “It’s a job I can do,” she said simply.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
But the evening practice routine on the old green typewriter continued.
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The old green typewriter sits in my office now, unrepaired.
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2 . For all the talk of helicopter parents and their snowflake children, most parents I know are more concerned with whether their children’s development would be considered normal by experts than whether they are raising a prodigy (天才).
When the teen years arrive, the “Is it normal?” instinct can go into overdrive. Adolescence is marked by many changes, including ones that manifest(显示)physically and, their more challenging counterpart, ones that manifest emotionally. The moods and deep feelings are intense, and make many helicopter parents in a state of extreme panic.
But difficult feelings are often not a cause for concern, according to psychologist Lisa Damour in her new book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. Not only are sadness and worrying healthy and natural parts of being a teenager, but the ability to experience these feelings(without a parent panicking)and to learn how to cope with them is developmentally necessary.
There is a lot of commercial marketing around wellness that can give people the impression that they are only mentally healthy or their kids are mentally healthy if they are feeling good, calm or relaxed. This is not an accurate definition of mental health. Mental distress is not only inevitable—it is part of mental health and experiencing it is part of how kids grow and mature.
There are many other healthy ways kids regulate emotions besides talking. Listening to mood-matching music is a very adaptive way to regulate as the experience of listening to the music catalyzes the emotion out of them. Teenagers also discharge emotions physically—by going through a run, jumping on a trampoline or banging on drums. Sometimes they will discharge them through creative channels like drawing or making music.
As adults, we should not diminish the value of emotional expression that brings relief, even if it doesn’t come in the verbal form to which we are most accustomed. Don’t join in because what we ultimately want is for our teens to become autonomous in dealing with their hard feelings.
1. Why do many helicopter parents feel alarmed in their children’s adolescence?| A．They are eager to raise a genius. |
| B．They are concerned about their children’s safety. |
| C．They can’t accept children’s physical changes. |
| D．They are anxious about their children’s mental development. |
| A．It is all about good feelings. |
| B．It means having the ability to handle hardships. |
| C．It contributes to kids’ growing up. |
| D．It refers to a person’s positive qualities. |
| A．To confirm bad feelings are sure to be gone. |
| B．To encourage parents to give a helping hand. |
| C．To show kids can tackle hard feelings themselves. |
| D．To clarify the definition of mental health. |
| A．Helicopter Parents: You Can Be More Self- reliant. |
| B．Commercial Marketing: A Magical Trick |
| C．Snowflake Children: You Are Promising |
| D．Hard Feelings: A Sign of Teenagers Mental Health |
I should have been born with my fingers permanently glued to a keyboard. Since I was five, I’ve known that I want to be a professional writer: a journalist, a novelist, a modernday Shakespeare, maybe. In my freshman year I tried to figure out what A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar were about. Macbeth was much easier to understand in my sophomore year (大二年级).
However, I’m practically addicted to books, whether I’m reading or writing them. I can’t go a single day without writing something. I have made it a rule to pick up a pen and just let my thoughts out every day.
I can be inspired by anything: an expression, a song and a movie. Once I get inspired, it’s like the wheels turning faster and faster as I think out one possible story after another.
My family is so widespread that whenever I meet with a cousin or an aunt I only vaguely (模糊地) remember; I tell him or her I’m a writer because I know it will distinguish me from all the other kids in the family and make me memorable. I told my relatives about the stories I used to write as a child, the projects I’m working on now, and why I’m working so hard to make a breakthrough in the competitive world of publishing. One aunt hugged me and told me, “Just don’t forget about the rest of us when you become the next J. K. Rowling.”
Smiling, I replied, “Don’t worry, I won’t.” I am confident that I will become the next J. K. Rowling. I have the ambition, the means, and the talent. My English and history teachers don’t praise my writing and tell me I have an innate (与生俱来的) writing talent even though they know how passionate I am about writing, and how that passion slips through my fingertips to the paper.
Paragraph 1：
I don’t really know why I love writing so much.
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Paragraph 2：
Maybe I just want to leave my mark on the world since I can’t sing to create a great work of art.
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1. 活动目的；
2. 具体行为（排队购票、爱护公物等）；
3. 发出号召。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 题目已为你写好。
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1. 爱护公共环境，保持校内外卫生清洁
2. 遵守交通规则，文明骑车
3. 提倡志愿服务精神，奉献他人
4. 其他
注意：1词数120左右；2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
全国文明城市 a National civilized city 志愿服务精神 volunteerism
Dear fellow students：
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6 . FOMO stands for “fear of missing out”. It refers to the nervous or anxious feeling a person gets when they realize they are not attending a social event either because they weren’t invited or they just didn’t feel like going.
One way for teens to deal with FOMO is to practice what is known as reframing (重塑) thinking.
Track negative thoughts and replace them with reasonable ones. One thing teens can do to deal with FOMO is to track their negative thoughts and feelings in a journal.
Turn off the technology and do something else. Turning off the technology seems like a natural cure for FOMO. But just switching the phone off does not erase the feelings that FOMO causes.
| A．Be realistic about availability. |
| B．There are some negative consequences of FOMO. |
| C．Realize that no one lives a perfect life as described in social media. |
| D．It’s a mental exercise designed to help them look at situations differently. |
| E．In general, FOMO causes people to assume that they have a low social rank. |
| F．Teens may still worry about missing out even if they’re not in social media at all. |
| G．This allows them to observe how often they’re feeling negative about themselves. |
