I don’t know why I am such a cheapskate.

Mom is not, dad is not, my brother is definitely not.

Grandma has already retired when I was in middle school, but she was in education so she knew a lot of good teachers. One of her teacher friends was doing a literature prep class for high school entrance exam so she put me in that class as well.

I guess his teaching method was good, as advertised my grandma, but I could not tell because literature at that time in my life was just another obstacle to get to high school. When we were doing a complementary on a classic novel about parenthood, he gave us a question that is along the line of ‘can we ever repay our parents?’.

And the answer, given by one of the classmate and was given an approving nod from the teacher was ‘we repay them by caring for our children’.

I have to tell you, that struck me hard.

Even at that point in life, I knew I do not want children. I see how I was, if I ever had children, they would be miserable, insecure about their look, criticizing their own average drawing, crying over their low grades...

If I’m never going to have children, how am I ever going to repay my parents?

I know my parents my whole life, I know they would never, but I am always unsure. I have to save up, for some rainy day when they call me up and ask me to pay back every penny they ever spent on me.

I have to be prepared.