Family not reeeeeeally aboard

snapdragonfly
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:03:49 +0000

uskoolfish, I believe pretty much the same thing about my d’s choice.

I just wish I could get that across to my parents because even though I really do believe that following her passion is the only right course for her to take, it’s just annoying when I KNOW they are talking about it and Having Discussions amongst themselves behind my back About How I Are Am Spoiling Granddaughter By Letting Her Waste Her Degree On Something So Frivolous, shaking their heads and pursing their lips in disapproval; and also in the case of my family, it is entirely possible they are deciding not to surprise us with an offer to help out with college costs after all, as they don’t wish to encourage something they think is a “mistake.” le sigh.

Not that I think they owe any of us anything, and not that I had penciled in contributions from the grandparents in the college budget, and not that they haven’t been very generous over the years even if they never give us another dime. But, I just know how they think. If they feel that this wealth they can choose to, or not to, use to help with d’s college, was acquired by their decision to stick with tedious but lucrative daily grind, and she’s not willing to make the same “sacrifice” like they did and pick something profitable over something fun, why should they give her money just so she can be irresponsible and just “have fun”, which THEY didn’t get to do. (well, actually they’ve had plenty of fun spending their money. Just not earning it.) And which, if that’s how they see it, I can understand why they would rather resent helping out; I don’t agree that d is wasting her time at all, but they don’t see it that way, and I can’t really do much about it.

It’s just annoying when the parents disapprove even though I’m a grown up with grown up or almost grown up kids, myself. By sheer coincidence, my life choices over the past 20 years have met with their approval, and that’s been rather nice. I don’t make my choices based on that, it’s just been as I said, coincidence that they have approved of my later years. (and no, they didn’t approve of my earlier ones…hah.) So I’ve gotten rather used to it, and now it’s back to the disapproval, as well as disapproval of d who they have always approved of up till now. But, obviously, I am not laboring under the delusion that my choices or my daughters need to hinge on what family members approve of or disapprove of, not when we know we are right about it. I am after all, an adult now, and have been for some time, and so on and so forth, and she is about to be too and it’s her life and if she’s going to live with a mistake it should be HER mistake, not someone else’s. (though, I don’t think she is making one. Not having a crystal ball, I can’t say. Then again, what the hell is a “mistake” anyway…what if she tries and fails, she’ll try something else. So what. She will have learned a lot. And what if she tries and succeeds? That’s entirely possible too. She has as much a shot as anyone - if she were talentless, I would steer her towards something she was better at. But she’s not.)

It’s just that one does NOTICE, the disapproval, and it bugs a bit, even if intellectually I know better.

Stepmother’s sister’s oldest son is a genuinely good kid and sweet person but he made some REAL mistakes. The kind that come with a police record. However he’s outgrown that and is going back to school. And though he hates math and isn’t actually very good at it he’s grinding it out to go into engineering.

I suppose they think I should force d to do like he is - but I can’t. He’s choosing to do that and she doesn’t, and you can lead a kid to a degree program but you can’t make them really be happy about it.

Also. We have been there and done that with child number one. He was a very compliant and docile child and didn’t really have any objection to going into engineering. (although it wasn’t actually his idea. Nobody knows what his idea was…nobody ever asked him, I don’t think. It was more like “hey, you want to do engineering, right?” )So he went off to school all signed up for extremely hard math classes and guess what. He made straight a’s in his music classes (he played french horn) and flunked math. So he came back home, and in his mid twenties is just now getting around to going back. He should totally have taken music. The family would have freaked out including husband because “you can’t make a living” in music. You can’t make a living flunking out of college because you tried to do something you weren’t cut out for, (or quitting because you are bored and can’t imagine doing THIS the rest of your life) either. Had he just gone into music, he’d at least be finishing up a degree around now and that would be better than not. He is now stuck with local community college and a much smaller range of degrees from which to pick, and it won’t be music or engineering, but something probably like criminal justice. Which is fine. But the point is…everyone can’t be an engineer. And, you have to let them do what it is they are cut out to do. And, if I had listened to my gut and told everyone to just let him do what he was good at and let HIM figure out what he wanted to major in, he’d have been better off, and I am not making the same mistake again.

It’s a very risky thing, telling a creative person not to go into a creative field in order to assure job security. I feel like that is what they expect me to do: I can’t do that.