The Parenting Map Novels & Stories

My dad is a fan of tough love parenting. When I was a kid, there was a time when I obtained full marks on two subjects. But he told me, "Your grades don't mean anything in life. If you were a true man, you'd leap down five floors without batting an eyelash." Some time later, I was awarded for my act of bravery. But Dad scoffed in my face. "Not even a hair is harmed on your head. Why should you be awarded anyway?" I thought Dad wanted me to go through more training in life. On Christmas Eve, he ditched me on a snowy mountain under the guise of wanting me to go through more training. He didn't give me a tent or a lighter. Later on, Dad even brags about his parenting method to his relatives and friends. "A real man should survive and thrive in a desperate situation! I told Julian that he can forget about being my son if he can't even make his way back to the summit!" But the red dot on the GPS tracker installed in his phone hasn't moved for the past three hours. The truth is, I've already frozen to death in the mountains. Trapped in my fist is a crumpled, torn scrap of paper. Meanwhile, my soul is currently floating above the dining table while watching Dad brag about his tough love parenting.

A nurse, who has won a prestigious award for her career in the past, reveals a truth before passing away. "I don't have any regrets in this lifetime. The only thing I'm sorry about is the fact that I've helped switched babies for a woman ten years ago. "That woman came from a wealthy family, and yet she intended to show her child tough love. That's why she chose to swap her baby for the one belonging to a pair of beggars living in the slums. "I helped her conceal the entire incident. For that, I feel very sorry for that woman's biological child." At the moment, I'm sitting in a hut amid the rampant weeds. Scars criss-cross over every inch of my body. My gaze remains numb as I quietly apply medication to myself while listening to the news. Suddenly, someone knocks on the front door. When I open it, I see a wealthy-looking woman dressed in fancy clothes. "Ella, I'm here!" She pulls me into a hug, her eyes already red-rimmed. "From today onward, the tough-love parenting is over! Now, I'm going to take you home!" The old radio keeps emitting crackling noises as it repeats the nurse's final words. For a moment, I'm stunned. Then, I push the woman away and conceal my limping leg. My eyes are as hollow as the abyss. "You got the wrong person, ma'am."

The Moon Goddess gave Lois a mission—kill Alpha Erika and end his blood-soaked reign. Lois was born with tattoos that carried the sacred map to the one weapon that could avenge the massacre of the Moonland Pack. Sent by the Moon Goddess herself, she was created for one purpose: To destroy the Alpha who dared to erase the descendants of the divine. But to reach him, she must first get through his son. And his son, King was everything she hated—until he became everything she couldn’t resist. As Lois uses King to get to Erika, she never expects to fall for the monster trapped inside him. Nor does she expect betrayal, exposure… and a child growing within her. Now hunted by her enemies and abandoned by the Goddess who once chose her, Lois must make an impossible choice: Save the man she was sent to kill or plunge the dagger into his heart before he loses control and destroys everything—including her.

They call it Area Alpha 101. It doesn’t appear on the world map or the satellites, but it’s rumoured to be there. It’s unofficially the largest continent on Earth, but the humans aren’t educated on it. Only the top shots in the governments and monarchies know about it, but have kept it a secret from everyone else. No-one answers questions regarding it. People have been quoted saying that they tried to get in, but they only hit a barrier. This barrier is said to be invisible, yet you can’t see what’s on the other side. For centuries, no-one has been able to get past the barrier, and those who try, come away ‘bewitched’, or so it has been reported. You know what the funny part about this is? There are literally signs that say “NO HUMANS ALLOWED” just a distance away from the ‘barrier’. You can imagine the insane theories that the human civilization has come up with in regards to what they imagine could be behind the barrier. The biggest guess as you yourself would probably guess is aliens; but that’s just it – NO-ONE knows what’s behind the barrier. Except me that is. Or so I thought.

To attract more potential customers, my wife decided to join the cycling community. During the two months I was away on a business trip, she posted new cycling routes every single day on the map and became a well-known cycling socialite in the local scene. A neighbor suddenly sent me a video. The location tag pointed straight to my backyard. [Dude, your wife is something else. Already found herself a riding partner? Looks like the bike’s not the only thing getting ridden.] In the video, an unfamiliar lace panties hung on the handlebars of the bicycle. The lush grass swayed rhythmically, with an undulating figure occasionally peeking from behind it. I dialed her number. “What are you doing?” She squealed, “I’m out for a ride, honey. I’ve been landing a lot of high-quality clients lately. I’m working really hard to make money!” “Oh?” I smiled. “With your body?” I tightened my grip on the phone and enunciated each word, “It’s pretty dark in the backyard. Want me to turn on the lights for the two of you?

This book is authored by amy worcester. “Good morning, fam. This is my uncle Owen, everyone calls him Reese, because that’s his last name and the military is weird like that. He likes thick girls and freaky sex.” ************************ Forty-three year old Helen is newly divorced and trying to find herself. For the first time in her life, she is not under the control of a man. With an absentee father, an abusive step-brother and a manipulative ex-husband, she's had the perfect trifecta of bad men. Along with learning to live life on her own, she's trying to help her three children. Jaxon is struggling with his sexuality. Jolene is discovering that her perfect marriage is far from perfect. JD is just trying to get through high school and into the Navy. Fifty-two year old Owen Reese returned to his hometown after twenty years in the Navy. He started a small business that has made him a millionaire over the past decade. With his own daughter grown and living a life of her own, he thought his days of parenting were behind him. But he is now raising his sixteen year old niece while his sister is deployed with Doctors Without Borders. And now, the cute, plump receptionist from his accountant's office is everywhere he turns. Not that he's complaining; he's dying to get his hands on those lovely, lush mermaid thighs that haunt his dreams. Nothing seems to go right for them. All of his many sisters are constantly interfering. Her children worry about her so much that they are almost obsessive. And she just wants to be happy. And skinnier. Warning: include an abusive relationship

My mom is terrified of being laughed at by others the most. Whenever the holidays are here, she will keep repeating one sentence to me—"Don't go around embarrassing me." When my relatives gather around and chat with each other, I accidentally knock a fruit platter over. Mom drags me over and slaps me on the spot. At the holiday feast, I grab extra pieces of steak for myself. Mom responds by kicking my chair over. When it's time for the holiday gifts to be distributed, my aunt, Gabriella Hall, has miscalculated the number of children present among the family. So, she has prepared one less gift for the occasion. Mom doesn't hesitate to kick me out of the apartment, leaving me shivering in the cold corridor in just my indoor clothes. The icy winds chill me to the bone. I keep slamming my palms on the front door while screaming and crying my apologies at Mom, and yet she remains unmoved and silent. Instead, she turns to face Aunt Gabriella with an apologetic smile on her face. "I'm really sorry. I didn't raise my daughter well. It's only fair that you ridicule me." What Mom doesn't know is that I get triggered whenever I hear the word "ridicule" thanks to her so-called parenting lessons. Whenever I hear that word, I want nothing more than to hurt myself uncontrollably. So when I hear the word "ridicule" coming out of Mom's mouth through the front door, I turn on my heel quietly and begin making my way toward the bridge next to the neighborhood that's plunged into darkness. The moment I jump from the bridge, the only thought I have is, "Mom, no one will ridicule you because of me this time."

It's 11:30 pm. Home alone, I decide to order some takeout. When the map shows the delivery guy is zero miles away, I receive a call from him. I pick up, only to hear unsettling silence from the other end. I hang up, annoyed. The next moment, the guy texts me, "Sorry, I'm hearing-impaired and unable to speak. I called to notify you to pick up your food as soon as possible. I can't explain things over the phone, and I apologize for that." Then comes another text. "You must've been waiting for a long time. I've left your order at your door, so please pick it up as soon as you can." Just as I prepare to open the door, I see bars of live comments—reminiscent of livestream chats—floating right before my eyes. "Don't open the door! That dude isn't a delivery guy at all! He's a murderer!" "He called you to check if you're a woman living alone!" "Seriously, why are all thriller story protagonists always so dumb? The delivery guy is obviously suspicious, yet she still wants to open the door."

In the coastal quiet of Baler, a studio is born—not of architecture, but of intention.* Founded by Yam, a poet whose words cradle pain gently, and Franc, an artist who paints tenderness into walls, the studio becomes a refuge for those learning to stay—with grief, love, longing, and themselves. As visitors arrive, they leave behind more than footprints: a sigh recorded in bamboo, a poem tucked into the “Found Letters” shelf, a mural painted in crooked lines. Through zines, tea, silence, and sketchbooks, the studio teaches softness as revolution. Ren creates the *Window of Soft Returns*, an installation of anonymous voice recordings—each whisper forming a community of echoes. Drew builds the *Staircase With No Wrong Turns*, inviting people to walk through emotions without shame. Franc offers brushstrokes as brave work, and Yam curates writing circles that map healing in half sentences. Together, they host festivals that feel like hugs, and they begin traveling their archive, letting softness cross oceans. Even those who once left—like Miguel—return, discovering that some doors never truly close. Others, like Tala, capture the studio’s sound and turn it into a podcast of breath and becoming. Over seventy chapters, the studio transforms into something larger than itself: a mural of memory, a sanctuary for second chances, a place where return is sacred and voice is proof of survival. In the final bloom, the studio stands not as a monument—but as a reminder: > *“Staying isn’t easy. > But chosen together, > it becomes home.”*

The words echoed, a promise she wore like a blindfold. “Give me a chance to prove to you that love is beautiful.” Kensington Darley had believed him. At twenty-six, she was the beautiful, trusting daughter of a gilded cage, and she had willingly traded her own life’s map for the one drawn by her boyfriend. His choices became her destiny; his whispered needs, her sacred law. Until the moment his love demanded her degradation. He didn't ask her to empty a savings account. He didn't ask her to sell the family jewels. He asked for her body, for her dignity, to be sold piece by devastating piece. The debt. It was a cold, unforgiving beast, and the only currency powerful enough to silence it was Kensington's unwilling performance in front of a camera. Every forced smile, every feigned moan, was a knife-edge decision she made in the name of love. She despised the spotlights, the sterile sets, the shame that clung to her like cheap perfume—but she did it. Because she loved him. But as she watches the man she is saving—the man who allowed her to be lost—a single, poisonous question begins to bloom in the darkness of her despair: Does he love her back? If the answer is no, what becomes of a woman who has sacrificed everything for a lie? And how will Kensington Darley ever learn to trust a single word, let alone love, again?