Parents Who Always Downplay Your Success

College Life
1

<p>At the beginning of March, I started to work more on EBAY and started selling more. Since then, I have made around $6,000. It’s not a lot, but it is a lot more than working at a work study job at my school.</p>

<p>My friends have all complimented me and said that is cool that I could make that much money selling on EBAY. My Grandfather said that it was great that I could make that much money and go to school full time.</p>

<p>My parents said that I should get a “real” job in the spring. They said that selling on EBAY is not “working”.</p>

<p>I have treated this like a business and kept a spreadsheet of my assets, liabilities, and kept track of my net income and tangible assets. It is more work than I would have done at my work study job.</p>

<p>Do any of you have parents who always try to downplay your success? It seems like every time I accomplish something, they try to come up with a reason to downplay the accomplishment.</p>

2

<p>No, fortunately not. However, I have a close friend that encounters something similar with his parents. I don’t know why your parents are doing that, maybe it’s just the generation gap and their grasp of how technology and business has changed. My best advice would be to not listen to them. Results speak for themselves, 6k is a lot of money. The math speaks for itself, you made 6k in 8 months, $750 a month. I doubt you started off at that rate, probably started small then increased over time. If you got a job at 7.50/hour would have taken over 100 hours to make that same money (taxes taken out.) That is over 25 hours a week of doing some menial task. You have your own business that you can run from anywhere on your own time. I don’t know what their deal is, if I knew how you could make that much money on ebay I would certainly be doing it. Although I doubt you would tell me, haha.</p>

3

<p>You are right, I don’t listen to them. I make different amounts of money every month.</p>

<p>One day in April, I made over $1,000 selling tickets to a Miley Cyrus concert that was held on July 4th.</p>

4

<p>That is very sad to hear. It is very sad that your parents aren’t supporting you. They should be happy alone that you are attending college. On top of that, you are earning a lot of money by working your own way.</p>

<p>Maybe your parents are jealous? That is one possible thing I can come up with.</p>

5

<p>I’m sorry your success as an entrepreneur is not appreciated by your parents. You are obviously a motivated, ambitious and mature student to be able to self-generate that income. </p>

<p>The poster above may be right–your parents may be jealous because they had to do a boring or physically demanding job at your age–and earned a lot less. </p>

<p>Keep track of your success, future employers, grad schools, and romantic interests will be very impressed with your smarts.</p>

6

<p>Thanks for your inspiration. I really appreciate it.</p>

7

<p>It’s great you’re making money, but your parents probably just want you to have a traditional working experience: one that involves responsibility to a boss, customer skills, a recommendation to put on your resume, that sort of thing. Try to see it from their point of view, I don’t think they mean to downplay your success.</p>

8

<p>Why would I work a traditional job that pays less than what I make now?</p>

9

<p>Certain experiences are more valuable than money. Think of a residency for a physician. Congrats, though!</p>

10

<p>Would you sacrifice your existing business by having an additional employer? Do you spend hours purchasing merchandise, or?</p>

<p>(Of course, we don’t know what your business model is – is there some productive element involved or is it just reselling?)</p>

11

<p>I mainly resell merchandise. I found a website that sells figures for $30 less for what they sell for on EBAY. I have made around $2,500 just on that alone.</p>

<p>I probably spend 3 hours a day shipping and researching.</p>