Author's note: Short, little story-kind-of-thing. Originally written about Denmark, but you can imagine who you want. America, Italy or Russia.
When he was younger, he went to a vacation with his parents. He was an only child and no cousins at his age. Only his parents.
His parents never bothered to talk to him, to praise him. They generally didn't pay any attention at him at all. They were busy. He always said this to himself. But after a while he started to lost the belief in it.
All what his parents did was arguing or not talking to each other at all. Of course, there were times, when they didn't did the two thing listed above. They had a nice chat about some neutral topic or a serious talk about serious things.
But they didn't talked to him. So he talked to them. But he got 'hmm'-s in response. It was like they were not even listening. Sometimes they asked him to shut up. After a while he stopped talking to them. He talked to cats and dogs. Even to the tree. The oak tree was his best friend.
This vacation was different. Even though everything looked like the usual at first, it wasn't.
They went to the beach on a beautiful sunny day. His parents were arguing again and he was sitting on the back seat trying to not hear them. He looked out the window and watched the landscape. It was far more interesting, then the argument. He rolled down the window so he wouldn't hear it.
When they arrived, his parents sent him out to 'play', while they sat down tiredly on a bench and continued their argument.
After a while he got bored playing alone, so he just walked around the place. The he saw it! A beautiful pinkish seashell, which shone brightly as the sun lighted it. He picked it up, and lifted to his ear. He caught a rumor, that if he does that, he will hear the ocean.
But it was much better! He didn't hear the ocean, but something much better! He heard his parents' happy voice talking to him, praising him. Saying that he was a good child, they are proud of him and they love him. He never felt so happy in his life!
But then his father voice interrupted him: "Here you are you worthless child. Let's go home, I don't have energy for you!" Then he turned away grumpily and continued to complain. But the small child smiled brightly. After all now he knows that his parents love him!