5 . Teens shifting their focus from parents to peers is normal. The self-protective urge to pull away at this stage of parenting can be strong. After all, they don’t seem to need me or want me around, right?       1    

Children are trying to figure out what their relationship with their parents as an adult is going to look like.     2     It’s really painful to parents who are savoring every last moment with their teen under their roof to get their teenager annoyed at any proposal that the parent is using to try to pull them close. Nobody’s doing anything wrong. This is normal development.

Parents should reach an ideal balance —— “lighthouse parenting”. The adolescent years are a unique opportunity to support and influence our kids, if we can see through their apparent lack of interest in us and recognize how important we really are. As they’re growing, adolescents have a big job to try to answer this fundamental question, “Who am I?”     3     As our teens struggle to imagine themselves without us, they will sometimes actively push us away or give us the silent treatment.    4    

Interdependence often looks like once again living under one roof. So parents shouldn’t start counting down the days to that perfectly clean home just yet. Beneath teenagers’ too-cool-for-this exterior, there are soft spots that occasionally show themselves.    5    

6 . My memories of those nights I spent with my great-grandmother are still vivid. I_________ them all, because I have_________ else to remind me of her. While my friends_________ display treasures left to them by their grandmothers — precious china, antique silver, jewelry — all that I have of her is a scarf I’d made her.

My great-grandmother didn’t have a china-and-jewelry kind of _________. While we were under the _________, she told me many _________ stories. I felt the pain a mother feels when her only son is _________ missing after a battle. I felt the _________ a wife feels as throat cancer robs her beloved _________ of speech and ultimately of life. I felt the__________ of the Depression (大萧条), what it was like to lose your home and to __________ produce that had gone bad. My great-grandmother never cried when she __________ her past, and afterward, she always said, ” Oh, kid, it’s a great life if you don’t __________.”

A few years ago, my life took a __________ turn, and curiously, I found my great-grandmother and her stories frequently occupying my __________. I realized then that __________ she had not left me any precious objects, she had left me a treasury of stories and a wealth of__________. By turning her soul inside out to me during those nights in bed, she’d given me the greatest gift — her __________, her courage to face life head-on. Her legacy (遗赠) gave me the __________ I’d lacked. If she could survive the __________ of her life, then I knew I could, too.

8 . My mother put the golden butterfly pendant (吊坠) on my neck. In her eyes, I saw pride for the first woman of our family to achieve a university education.

My grandmother loved to tell us stories of her first years at primary school on the small island of Chios, Greece: her beautiful handwriting, much praised by her teachers and her good marks. All this changed in Grade 4 when one day my grandmother’s nose started to bleed as she was doing her homework. It scared my great-grandmother, because in those years, many were dying from tuberculosis (结核病). Spending hours indoors studying was associated with growing weak and pale, a sign of that terrible disease. The family prohibited Grandma from finishing primary school and sent her to a local factory.

My mother was able to finish high school on Chios. She was an excellent student and her parents encouraged her to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Unfortunately, the Second World War clipped her wings. She ended up marrying and looking after her family’s businesses.

As I grew up, my mother always urged me to get the university education that she was denied. Sometimes I remember wanting to help her out with cooking or baking. “No,” my mother would say. “Go back to your homework! That takes priority!” My father, following the Greek tradition, would tell her: “Teach Sophia to cook! What is she going to feed her family?” I also remember relatives telling my parents to hurry and arrange a marriage for me as soon as I finished high school. “There is time for all that! Later on! First, she will get a degree!” my mother always hurried to reply.

On my university graduation, my mother presented me with my grandma’s special pendant. “But this is the pendant Grandma used to say she would only give me on my engagement day!” I reminded my mother. “A degree is better than an engagement ring; that’s what I told Grandma and she agreed,” my mother replied.

9 . The only thing separating my two worlds is the Rio Grande river— it might not be much, but it’s enough for me to feel a big difference in customs and values. People who are not from El Paso, Texas, United States or a border city might not understand what it's like to grow up between two places at once.

I grew up in a Mexican household. My dad was born in El Paso but lived nearly his entire life in Ciudad Juárez until I was born, and my mom was born and raised in Mexico. She didn’t move to the US until she had me, when she was 28. My first language was Spanish, but my parents did not want me in bilingual classes. So, instead, it was all English for me at school.

English was all I spoke among friends at school, while Spanish was the designated language with family, and I hardly ever mixed them. I also spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, who lived in Juárez and you could say helped raise and shape who I am today. It's thanks to them that I perfected my Spanish, learned to read and write in that language — despite never taking classes—and fell in love with my Mexican culture by traveling to Mexico City and around the country.

Along with being bilingual came a sense of having a double identity. I enjoyed watching Spanish TV series with my grandma as much as American series such as The Amanda Show. And the same went for music. I loved listening to Spanish singers, as much as American pop singers.

It wasn’t until high school that I began to meet other people whose backgrounds I could relate to. I was introduced to friends with whom I identified because they were Mexican American and who had also been raised in El Paso but often visited family in Juárez. It was also during these years that I started going out to party in Juárez.

Growing up on the border is pretty special. Thanks to my bicultural upbringing, I learned to enjoy and appreciate both sides of me without ever questioning who I am, because the truth is that I need both of those relationships and cultural identities to feel complete.