Some parents think that kids prefer their friends to their parents. It’s not true. When I have a(n) ________ with my mom or dad, I am in a bad mood(情绪) for the ________ of the day. Maybe I can have an argument with my ________ and then go to school and just ________ about it. But I can’t. It’s very upsetting(令人不快的). If my parents and I have had an argument, I can be sitting in class, but I’m not really ________ what my teacher is saying, because my mind ________, still thinking about the argument.

And then I try to________ on a good time and a good way to reopen a ________ with them so that I can go where I want or get what I want.

So I sit in class, ________ a new strategy and working out every possible response. It means, of course, that I’m still not paying attention to what’s going on in my ________. This upsets me too, so then I get worked up all over again.

I’m sure I’m not the only one this happens to. My friends feel ________ upset when it happens to them. So, even though it’s really ________ to me to feel close to my friends, it means even more to me to feel ________ to my parents. Like me, most of my friends ________ their parents, and want to have a good relationship with them. When my parents and I are ________ eye to eye, a lot of things in my life look okay to me.

My parents never once spoke of the stress of having to pay for college, but I knew enough to appreciate that it was there. Therefore, when my French teacher announced that she’d be leading an optional class trip to Paris over one of our ________ for those who could come up with the money to do it, I didn’t even ________ to raise the issue at home.

Yet one evening my parents ________ me down, looking puzzled. My mom had learned about the France trip through my friend’s mom.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” she said.

“Because it’s too much money.” I replied.

“That’s actually not for you to decide, Michelle,” my dad said gently, feeling almost ________. “And how are we supposed to decide, if we don’t even know about it?”

I looked at them both, ________ of what to say. My mother glanced at me, her eyes soft. My father had changed out of his work uniform and into a clean white shirt. They were in their early forties then, married nearly twenty years. Neither one of them had ever ________ in Europe. They never took beach trips or went out to dinner. They didn’t own a house. Everything went into us. It seemed that we were their only ________, me and my brother.

A few months later, I ________ a flight to Paris with my teacher and a dozen or so of my classmates from Whitney Young in Chicago. We would stay in a hostel, and ________ the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. We’d buy snacks from ________ on the street and walk along the banks of the Seine. We’d speak French like a bunch of high school kids from Chicago, but we’d at least speak French.

As the plane ________ from its gate that day, I looked out my window and back at the airport, knowing that my mother stood somewhere behind its black-glass window, dressed in her winter coat and waving me on. I remember all the ________. I remember the jet engines firing, ________ loud. And then we were rattling (嘎啦嘎啦地响) down the runway and beginning to tilt (倾斜) upward as the ________ seized my chest and pressed me backward into my seat for that strange, in-between moment that came before I felt ________ finally.

I’m a single mom. Unluckily, I was________earlier in the year so times was really________. My son had been in and out of the________for six years because of a severe disease. He was 8 years old and his brother was 7.

My sons knew we had________troubles, but they didn’t know how hard we were because my parents________for them. I was grateful that I had helpful parents.

One day, we were at a grocery store(食品杂货店) and I was________about grocery money and gas money because the day I had to pay for bills was________. Meanwhile, my 8-year-old son saw a homeless man outside the store. It was really cold and the man asked if we could give him some_______. My elder son walked to the man and gave him a dollar, and his brother did the________thing. I saw my sons talking to him and ________them say “be right back”.

They came over and asked me if we could get the man some hot coffee because it’s ________and the man had stayed there for four hours. So, we went inside, buying the man some________. Suddenly, I was not thinking about my________, or my worries at all. Instead, I was happy to see my sons do something kind, which was so________.

I hugged both my kids, because they had________me the great value of kindness.