Love Is Earned, Not Entitled: Parent Performance

Based on a True Story.

Scene: A mother and daughter sit across from each other in a small, quiet room. The mother, mid-50s, carries the air of someone who believes she is owed something. The daughter, younger, sharper, more aware—leans back in her chair, arms crossed.

The conversation begins.

Mother: You know, when I was your age, I used to do everything for my mother. I cleaned, I cooked—I served her without question.

Daughter: [Silence. A calm, piercing stare.]

Mother: That’s how it should be. It’s a default. A child should want to help their parent.

Daughter: A default? You think love and service are default settings?

Mother: [Scoffs] Of course. That’s what God says. A mother—

Daughter: [Interrupts, voice steady] No. That’s what you say. That’s what weak people say when they need something they haven’t earned.

Mother: [Shifts uncomfortably] It’s not about earning. It’s about—

Daughter: It’s about what? You think being a parent automatically entitles you to care? To love? To service?

Mother: Of course. That’s how it works.

Daughter: No. That’s how you think it works. And that’s why you’re miserable.

Mother: [Taken aback] Miserable?

Daughter: You spent $60,000 buying religious books for people who didn’t want them, didn’t ask for them, and would have been better off with actual financial help. Meanwhile, your own daughter was on the brink of homelessness and you smiled. Smiled.

Mother: [Defensive] That’s not—

Daughter: That’s exactly what happened. And you think God is with you? You think God is nodding along, approving of your hypocrisy?

Mother: It’s about faith.

Daughter: No. It’s about performance. That’s all your life has ever been. Everything you do is to perform.

You help people for the image of generosity.

You pray for the image of piety.

You raise your hands in supplication but keep your heart blackened with bitterness.

And you want me to serve you? You think I should love you by default?

Mother: That’s what good daughters do.

Daughter: [Leans in slightly, voice razor-sharp] No. That’s what weak daughters do. The ones who don’t wake up. The ones who spend their lives bending over backwards for people who don’t deserve it.

I don’t do default settings. I don’t do entitlement. I don’t do performances.

You want help? Earn it. You want love? Be worthy of it.

Mother: That’s not how it works.

Daughter: Oh, but it is. It’s why you’re alone. It’s why your own mother never truly loved you.

Silence.

The mother flinches.

Daughter: You think she loves you because she says, “My daughter this, my daughter that?”

Every time she speaks of love, it’s about something you did for her.

“She used to help me with this.”

“She gave me that.”

“She achieved this.”

It was never unconditional. It was always transactional. You never had a mother. You had a taskmaster.

And you became exactly like her.

Your entire life is service for validation.

Your entire identity is what you can do for others.

And that’s why you fear stillness. That’s why you can’t exist without performance.

It’s why you’re trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who only acknowledges you when you cook, when you serve, when you pay the bills. You are nothing to him otherwise.

And that’s why you keep buying books no one will read.

That’s why you smiled when I told you my life was falling apart.

Because deep down, if I suffered, if I struggled, if I collapsed under the weight of hardship—then maybe, just maybe, your choices wouldn’t seem so bad.

Silence.

The mother looks away, her mask cracking for just a moment. A flicker of something—perhaps recognition, perhaps anger.

The daughter stands up.

Daughter: [Calmly, without hesitation] If you want to spend your life performing, that’s your choice. But don’t expect me to be part of your audience.

She walks away.

The mother stays seated, still trapped in her delusion, still waiting for the love she will never earn.