Three lines for Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.
Photo ©Charlie Harutaka
They’d always lived on a barge, assumed their daughter loved it as much as they did.
She watched the bank slipping past as they glided down the wintry river and wished her life was not constantly in movement, always going somewhere but never arriving.
One day she would live in a house, a real house with a garden, and stand still, her boots planted firmly in the earth and watch spring touch the trees and the plants with green fire.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Lovely tale of hoping for a life filled with those things desired and a sense of self-actualization. The mood really feels just wonderful!
Glad you like it. I know an old lady who lived all her life on a barge. Looking back she’s positive about it, but when she was a kid all she wanted was to be like everybody else.
I have the same dream, simple dream of having my own house with a garden, watching perfectly green grass to grow there…such a warm feeling. Great post 👍
Thanks! What seems so ordinary for some people is a dream for others. Hope your dream comes true one day 🙂
hope so 👍
and gaze dreamily at the replicas by the window.
Sailing ships are more exciting than barges. They get to go to sea at least 🙂
☺☺
Funny how children always want the opposite of what their parents do… Mind you, winter is when I found living on a boat a bit trying, too. Fab take on the prompt 🙂
You lived on a boat? A houseboat always appealed to me and boats in general despite always being violently seasick sometimes before the boat was even out of the harbour!
Great take on the prompt! Somewhere, there is an earth bound child wishing for a life at sea 🙂
Thank you! I bet there are lots. Life on a boat seems like a great adventure, but I imagine it’s no fun for kids who never stay long enough in one place to make friends.
Awww I can feel her dislike for the present.
I bet she doesn’t have brothers or sisters either. Not much room for big families on a barge.
It’s easy to see why a child would want stability. The same friends from one week to the next and a school where the lessons didn’t change all the time. It’s a big dream.
xxx Massive Hugs xxx
It’s the kind of life that could seem romantic until you have to pick up and move again.
xxx
Parents don’t always realize that their children have their own opinion of what they want out of life. Being young doesn’t mean your desires are just a passing thing..for some, perhaps, but there are a lot of people who know what they want at a very young age.
We try to do what we think is best, but everybody has their own ideas of what ‘best’ means. Parents often put financial security above any other consideration. Young people would often rather take the risk and do something closer to their heart.
This is a big assumption.
What in particular? You mean about kids wanting to follow a dream and their parents wanting them to go for a safe profession? It’s not an inevitability, but I’d have thought that far more children want to be spacemen or wardens in an African game park than adults do.
I meant that parents often assume the kids like the lifestyle that the parents have chosen. That’s a big assumption for them to make.
I get you. Some people want to reproduce themselves in their children so I suppose it’s natural for them to assume their kids will just accept what they want to stick on them. It can have tragic consequences.