By JAYDEYN CONTRERAS
Staff Writer
A time I was less than perfect was when I got caught up with my mom when I was 15. She found out I was making bad choices and was lying to her and in that moment I felt I’d hit rock bottom. It all started on a Tuesday morning, I was in first period doing the usual when a pass came for me to go to the front office. My mom was there with a pen and paper and she asked me the most terrifying question you can ask a teenager, “Where’s your phone and what is the password?”
My heart dropped when she came to the school because she knew I wouldn’t cause a scene at school. Obviously I had to give her my phone and password and all day while I was at school she was going through my whole life. Finding out my deepest secrets is a total invasion of my privacy. I was paranoid the whole day and when I got in the car after school that day it felt like I was on my way to hell. She yelled at me so loud once we got home for lying to her about so much stuff and not being honest. My mother said she was so disappointed in me and she was disgusted I couldn’t even feel comfortable at home. As punishment, my mom took my phone away for five months and in return gave me a Blackberry from AT&T. I still needed a phone to contact my mom while I was at school and stuff so she forced me to take it. The embarrassment was enough punishment for a lifetime. Not having my phone or social media really gave me so much time to think. On the bright side, my grades sprung up because I didn’t have any distractions in or out of class giving me so much time to get all my homework done. These were the toughest 5 months of my life, watching my mom look at me with a disapproving nod. Having to earn back my mom’s trust was quite a challenge. The only place I was allowed to go was my sister’s house and school. Even though getting my phone taken away wasn’t ideal at the time, for this period of my life it gave me a breather. I was able to really take a look at my surroundings and watched the majority of students in class be glued to their cellphones. At the time I did not admit this to myself but I felt happier without social media and not knowing what everyone else was doing or being reminded of what the beauty standard is. I felt this pressure and still do to this day to look like these Instagram models. But that thought automatically went away when I didn’t have my cell phone, out of sight, out of mind. During those months I was living with my grandma and my mom would work a lot, so I was by myself most of the time because my brother also had a job. I would watch a lot of Netflix and when it was okay for me to stay with my sisters I would go because she’s been in my shoes before. When my sister Jasmine was in high school she would always ditch class to hangout with her boyfriend and blow off school. My mom had to throw her in all kinds of different schools before she gave up and sent her to Independent Studies. And my older brother, J.T, was the one who got bad grades, so he got sent to Independent Studies as well. My sister was the rebel and my brother was a flunk, which put pressure on me to be the youngest who has good grades and who stays out of trouble. That’s why I think it hurt my mother way more because she never expected me to be the one to mess up really bad. She even told me that in her own words and it was like a dagger to my chest. I would say about 2 months into my punishment I was accepting it and doing okay, my mom and I would talk how we normally would and I could at least text and call my friends so it wasn’t so bad. My grandma had even told me that since I got my phone she had noticed I’d come out of my room a lot more and talked to them and she said it was like I was actually present in the house. When she told me this I didn’t know how to feel but I know I felt relieved, that’s for sure. I also felt guilty that she had felt like this before. I learned a lot during my punishment that life is more than just what you see on social media or what you think is and isn’t important, what is important is family always because at the end of the day and every day your family will always have your back, even when you mess up.