“And he has given me two days to move out,” she continued.
I was fuming. My daughter had transformed that backyard from a barren plot into a blooming oasis. She poured her heart into every plant, every flower, and every single vegetable.
She had always been like this. Lily wasn’t the type of child to sit inside and play with her toys. She preferred to stay outside and get her hands dirty, trying to discover how things grew.
“This is so much fun, Dad,” she told me one day when I was mowing the lawn and little Lily was planting flowers.
“There’s a few worms there,” she said, pointing. “But I still planted the seedlings anyway.”
Her mother hated it. She wanted Lily to have freshly pressed clothing, clean nails, and hair that stayed in place.
“You need to stop enabling this behavior, Jason,” my wife, Jenna, would say. “Encourage her to be a little lady.”
“Not a chance, Jenna,” I would always say. “Let this sweet girl just be herself.”
Now, after everything Lily had done to make her garden her own space, all I wanted to do was try and save her hard work.
“Don’t worry, honey,” I said, a plan already forming in my mind.
“How, Dad?” she asked.
“Because we’ll sort this out. And we’ll do it together.”
The next evening, I showed up at Lily’s place with my truck and a few friends. We were armed with flashlights and a healthy dose of righteous anger.
“Right, guys,” I said. “We’re going to do this for my daughter. We’re going to teach Jack a lesson. That as a landlord, you cannot go around and take advantage of young women.”
We meticulously dismantled the entire backyard haven that Lily put together.
“Dad?” Lily asked when she realized that we were there. “What’s going on?”
“Hi, darling,” I said. “We’re going to teach your landlord a lesson. He cannot do this. So, we’re going to take everything apart. I’ll take your plants home, too.”
Lily yawned and stretched.
“I’ll leave you to it, Dad,” she said. “I’m going to rest for a little bit and then get back to packing up the place when the sun comes up. I’m going to stay with Nolan until I find a place. He’ll be here with more boxes soon.”
“Go on,” I said. “We’ll be quiet, I promise.”
As we worked, every lovingly tended plant, every painstakingly built bed, vanished. By the time we were done, the once-flourishing garden was reduced to a desolate patch of dirt, a stark contrast to the lush photos Jack, the landlord, had already posted for the new listing.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. “You can leave. I’ll just help Lily pack. I’ll pick up my truck later, Malcolm.”
I wasn’t done. There was still more work to be done.
Inside the house, we rearranged the furniture to highlight all the faults.
The cracks in the walls were not hidden by Lily’s art pieces. The missing tiles were left out in the open without any kitchen appliances to cover them up.
“Nothing can be done about the ceiling mold in the bathroom,” Lily told me. “But I have been telling the landlord that we needed to sort it out.”
We replaced all the light bulbs with very bright blue-white ones, making the entire place look stark and uninviting.
As we worked, Lily and I talked about her time in the house.
“I remember when I first moved in,” she said, a hint of nostalgia in her voice. “The backyard was just dirt and concrete. And I didn’t think that anything could grow here. But eventually it did. And every time I felt homesick, I would come out here and plant something new or tend to whatever was growing.”
“And you made it happen,” I replied, smiling. “You turned it into a paradise.”
She sighed.
“It just feels so unfair. I did everything right, and he still found a way to ruin it all.”
“We’re not going to let him win,” I assured her. “This is just a setback. You’ve got a new adventure waiting for you. Nolan’s place is a good stop for now, but I know that he’s serious about you. Maybe a new house together is going to be the next step.”
I left my daughter’s place feeling confident that her landlord would get a really good wake-up call the next day.
“Dad, can you come over?” Lily asked me on the phone early that morning. “Please be here when I have to hand over the keys to Jack.”
“I’ll be there soon,” I said, buttering my slice of toast.
Lily had me packing her shoes into a box when Jack stormed in, livid.
“What the hell, Lily?” he demanded. “Where are the plants? The flowers? The pictures online clearly show what this place is supposed to look like!”
He sighed deeply, his face turning the color of a particularly overripe tomato.
Lily, the picture of innocence, blinked at him.
“What plants, Jack?” she asked. “The backyard has always looked like this, haven’t you noticed?”
She gestured toward the desolate patch, a sly smile playing on her lips.
Jack, caught red-handed with his deceitful plan, spluttered some incoherent threats about property damage. I stepped in, pointing at the exposed faults.
“You want to talk about damage?” I said, my voice cold.
“Let’s discuss the cracks in the walls, the missing tiles, and the mold in the bathroom. You can see everything clearly now, can’t you?”
Jack’s eyes widened as he looked into the bathroom.
“This is clearly sabotage!” he yelled.
“No,” I replied, pulling out the photos I’d taken when Lily moved in.
“This is exactly how the place was when she moved in. If anything, it’s tidier now. Nothing is missing, Jack.”
Jack tried to regain his composure, but the three couples who came for the viewing that afternoon saw the house in its raw, unappealing state. They all left without putting in an application.
Meanwhile, after a few months, Lily found a new place with a landlord who appreciated her green thumb, not just the potential for profit. As my daughter settled into her new home, I couldn’t help but feel proud.
Lily and I sat on her new porch, looking out at the spacious yard that would soon become her next gardening project.
“Dad, I can’t thank you enough,” she said, her eyes bright with relief and excitement. “I was so scared, but you knew exactly what to do.”
I smiled, squeezing her hand as we swung on the porch swing. “You did the hard part, kiddo. You stood up to him. And now, you’ve got a fresh start.”
What would you have done?
11 Old-School Parenting Rules That We Can’t Imagine to Follow Today
These days, young parents have tons of information about raising kids. There are books, websites, and experts offering advice on every little thing. They can even get consultations from specialists whenever they need. But our own parents didn’t have all that. They raised us based on what they knew and what they learned from their own parents. So sometimes, the way we were brought up can seem really different from what we’re told is best now.
1. Early marriage and parenthood go without saying.
In earlier generations, there was often pressure on young adults to marry and start a family at a relatively young age, and to have more than one child a couple of years after the start of the family. Today, there is more emphasis on personal and career development before settling down. And moreover some researches show that early marriage can lead to some family problems, like dissatisfaction with married life, experience of having lots of responsibility, lack of independence in family life.
2. A college education is an indicator of your status.
«You can’t find a good job without going to college!» Many people must have heard this when they were teenagers. And lots of us believed this, but now don’t even know where our college diploma is. More than 41% of people that finished college have jobs that don’t require this kind of education. Today, employers are more interested in the practical skills of their employees rather than their qualifications.
When you finish school, it may be wise to take a gap year to understand what you really want to do and decide if you actually need a college education.
3. Classes are good for kids’ development — the more, the better!
A very tight schedule can exhaust children, which is obviously not good at all.
Famous American teacher Douglas Haddad recommends that parents slow down and give their children time to discover their own talents, and then decide if they need additional forms of education.
4. Being plump is healthy.
Children that always finished their meals were praised, and being plump was believed to be healthy. But bad eating habits formed in childhood often result in weight problems and eating disorders.
5. Money can’t buy happiness.
We wish this were true, but life says otherwise: money can make you happier, no matter what other people say.
Parents should teach their children the basics of budgeting. This will help kids form the right habits in money management and reach financial success in their adult lives.
6. Not standing out from the crowd means being good.
Traditional parenting often enforced strict dress codes and grooming expectations, particularly regarding modesty and conformity to societal norms. This might puzzle us today as modern parenting encourages children to express themselves through their clothing, appearance and let them express their emotions fully.
7. Older children are responsible for younger ones.
Very often, older children had to spend a lot of time taking care of younger ones. Parents had to work a lot and there was no other choice. But older kids had to sacrifice their time with friends and hobbies for the needs of their younger siblings.
Psychologists say that sometimes when kids have to perform the duties of parents, it may lead to psychological problems: they might not want to have their own children.
8. Women are housewives and men are breadwinners.
In recent decades, gender roles are not as important anymore. Women today can build successful careers and men can go on paternity leave and manage things around the house.
9. There’s nothing more shameful for a woman than having children without a husband.
Wrong, again. Today, there’s nothing surprising about single mothers and they’re not frowned upon as they were 30 years ago. Very often, having a child without a husband is an informed decision made by a woman. More than that, in the past 30 years, the number of single fathers has increased 1.5 times.
10. Storks deliver babies.
Some topics were never discussed — like when kids asked where babies came from, parents often said that they were delivered by a stork. Because of this, young people would often get into their first relationship without any knowledge of their bodies. They only based things off of the advice they received from their friends and bits of information from books and films. All these experiences could lead to bad consequences, including problems with both physical and mental health.
11. Children should be seen and not heard.
In the past, children were often expected to remain quiet and obedient in the presence of adults. Modern parenting emphasizes the importance of children expressing themselves and their opinions, because self-expression is a vital component of a young individual’s growth. The development of self-esteem and confidence in children is frequently nurtured by their capacity to express their feelings with clarity and authenticity.
Every parent has their own way of raising children. Just like how every family has its own special traditions, parents have rules they think are best for their kids. Sometimes, famous people, like celebrities, also share their ideas about parenting. They might talk about what works for them and their families. But in the end, each parent decides what’s right for their own children, based on love and what they believe is best.
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