Personal Narrative Essay: Who Is Held Accountable?

Held Accountable My father has always had a strong sense of fairness and judgment. His perceptiveness has given me the opportunity to share my introspective thoughts with him. While many teenagers have tense and conflict-ridden relationships with their parents, I pride myself on being close with both my mother and father. I trust them to have more wisdom based on experience, and often look to them for advice. Because of this, I should have known my father was right when he worried that I was becoming too consumed by my love of the television show Supernatural last year.

After watching nine seasons of a television show back to back at the end of spring, I was anxious to share it with anyone. While my brother and mother had no interest, and

I tried again to defend myself, but he was firm; I had convinced her, wheedled and begged and manipulated until she was willing to do it, and she hadn’t asked me to stop simply because she wanted to have high standing in my eyes. My hands fiddled with my pajama shirt as he spoke. “There are consequences for your actions, and you have to take responsibility for what you do.” He sighed; he wanted nothing more than to go back to bed and pretend this never happened. “You’re the reason Madison can’t get to bed, so this time, you have to stay up with her until she’s asleep.” That knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was past midnight, and he wanted me to stay up later so I could babysit a twelve-year-old who was scared of a television show? I sputtered and tried to bargain, but Dad was not about to let me get off scot-free. All I wanted was to go to bed, and here he was keeping me up. I failed to see my hypocrisy at the time; I was perfectly willing to sacrifice his sleep so that I could have company for a television program. My father insisted, and I knew I had to deal with my mistake