Parental pressure horror stories

OpiefromMayberry
Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:50:38 +0000

"Actually, you did “ask for it” a bit in post 17 with the reference to the Stanford meeting and “Why would I pay, etc…” Your position did become clearer later. However, it’s not much of a solution for kids already in a great college and still being henpecked about their choices "

Let me elaborate this story and you’ll see my POV.
We were at the Presentation and 3 of the 4 professors were to put it simply I,I, Me, Me people. They talked with great pride how they helped students change their majors while enrolled. They also went on to explain these students did all the footwork research for their books they were publishing. Changing their majors gave them more time to do research for the professors.

I’ve been around the block before, I know when someone is taking advantage of a situation. I asked myself “why should I pay $160,000 for my child to be your unpaid research assistant?” What does the kid get out of it? The professors got free labor and income from their published works. So if these professors are advising a kid to switch majors… whose interest are they supporting?

The last guy (professor) was the bomb… he was great, his passion was the rainforest. It wasn’t about him… not an I I meme guy for sure. The problem was they saved him for last and after more than 3 hours of listening to the others, we had already made up our minds. I did lean over and ask my son his thoughts and he just shook his head and went “no”.

So a parent should have some imput in the situation because sometimes we don’t know the rationale of the person on the other side advising the switch. Sometimes having your kid’s best interests at heart means your not their best friend and only have happy sunny news to share.

Sometimes you gotta get up in their faces and wake them up. If only being nice to our kids were the determining factor in rasing a complete person, life would be easy. I know parents like that, their children are discribed as “freerange” kids. That is they know no boundries of any behavor as their parents didn’t want to restrict them. The funny thing is you see far more of these kids along the wayside than you might expect.