What Have Your Parents Taught You?

College Confidential Community
1

<p>If you were forced to choose between the following choices, which would you say sounds most like what your parents have taught you during your adolescent years?</p>

<p>(1) Go to a top college, be competitive, acquire status and wealth, and make it to the top.</p>

<pre><code> OR
</code></pre>

<p>(2) One’s relationship with family and friends is the most important ingredient in achieving happiness, live within your financial means, be kind, use your talents to help others.</p>

<p>Of course, you could say that your parents have taught you a mixture of things from both choices 1 and 2 (which is very likely). But for purposes of this thread, you must choose only ONE of the above. </p>

<p>Which is it: Choice #1 or #2?</p>

2

<p>neither of the two.</p>

3

<p>My family is scarily dysfunctional, in financial trouble, and the cause of considerable sadness… but I’d still have to say 2.</p>

4

<p>If I had to pick, then 1.</p>

5

<h1>1 and it worked out well. SOMETIMES, you can get #2 when you have #1.</h1>

6

<p>2 by far, although always maintains that one doesn’t need to go to Harvard or any other top school to get ahead in life. A state university will work just as well.</p>

<p>Here’s a quote by Gandhi they live by.</p>

<p>If wealth is lost, nothing is lost. If health is lost, something is lost. If character is lost, everything is lost.</p>

7

<p>Choice 1 by far.</p>

8

<p>Both, seriously. Its a false choice.</p>

9

<p>Definitely #2. My parents both went to good schools, yet they have never forced me to maintain a 4.0, take the MOST demanding course load, do tons of extracurriculars or apply to the Ivies. Sometimes I wish they were just a bit more…involved in the college application rush, so to speak, and had pushed me to achieve a bit more.</p>

10

<h1>2. You can have a lot of #1 and still basically live by #2…my parents went to a top college, are competitive, and have achieved a certain amount of wealth/status (the kind that has moved them from the middle/working class to the upper-middle class…not the mansion with 15 cars kind. Being that the vast majority of the people in the country, let alone the world, would like to have the financial cushion that we have, I’ll call it wealth), but we still believe in living within one’s means, of not getting caught up in the unimportant things in life, etc. Neither precludes the other, in my opinion.</h1>

11

<p>1</p>

<p>fdmfdmsds</p>

12

<h1>2 … my parents expect me to go to Hamline or maybe even Macalester. :/</h1>

13

<p>I wonder if age makes a difference in what people choose? I encourage my kids to aim for #2.</p>

14

<p>the quote “don’t push yourself too hard” comes to mind.</p>

15

<p>Be happy, and make those around you feel likewise</p>

16

<p>Both. </p>

<p>I was lucky enough that my mother (my only parent) did not have ANYTHING to do with my college decisions.</p>

17

<p>my rents preached a combo of the two. they expect me to go to college, and want to to go to the best one i can. but they dont want me to be over my head in work and competition; they just want me to be happy. but they also stress the second as well. they want me to have a good education, good career, and a good family and social life.</p>