I pit…well, in all honesty, I’m not sure quite who to pit. I’m somewhat sleepy and torn in emotion, so bear with me.
I have a 17 year-old cousin. She is beautiful, sweet, smart, and wise beyond her years. Extremely mature. She has never been arrested, isn’t promiscuous, and is (aside from the occasional teenage snit-fits and fighting with parents) a good kid. No drugs, no alcohol, spends most nights at home due to no more friends in the area (they’ve moved, etc).
However, when it came time to apply to colleges this past fall and winter, she overestimated her chances and did not get into a single one of the colleges she applied to. The last rejection letter came in June, and it was too late for her to apply anywhere else but a community college. There is only one community college in her area, and it offered not only almost no courses in her field of study (physics), but it is overrun by horrible girls who threatened her life many times and made her high school life a living hell. She refuses to go there, and I don’t blame her.
She has spent a lot of time alone in her room because no one was around (she doesn’t have many friends in her area, again) and is very envious of everyone who has gone off to college. So, she has decided that upon turning 18, she’s going to find an apartment in a student-friendly area of Daytona Beach, FL, getting a job, and planning to attend a community college in the spring semester with hopes to transfer into a university next fall.
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why Daytona Beach? She has her heart set on going to Florida, and the college she’d like to attend (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) is situated there. She also has a few college acquaintances there who she can get together with and meet up with once she moves.
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what about the apartment? She’s planning on working full-time now to save up money for that first payment and for emergency money, and then working full-time in FL (hopefully getting a job arranged before she moves) to pay the bills. She is choosing to move in a student-friendly building because of its safety advantage and, generally, lower rent.
As a current college student, I can honestly say that this doesn’t sound unfeasible to me. While not a generally popular option, I do know some who have done this very thing, and many who are doing something similar. It’s not for everyone, but she only plans for it to be temporary.
Her parents are not having this. At all. They have pulled out every threat possible: no Internet, no car, no monetary support, endless guilt trips, the whole gamut. They seek hours-long conversations with her in which they proclaim ignorant falsehoods such as, “You just don’t want to go to college”, “If you move to the city, you’ll become on drugs or a prostitute in six months”, “You’re not allowed to move”. All of these conversations end in tears. Her parents keep trying to meet her half-way, and when she does, they decide it isn’t good enough and want her to be even more flexible and kowtow to their demands. For example, her mother tried to negotiate it into a “one-month extended vacation” in which she would move down to FL with my cousin. :rolleyes:
Parents are supposed to support. Why not offer her some monetary or other means of support? She plans to come back home often and for holidays. If they’re truly convinced she can’t make it on her own, why would they deny her things she needs to do just that?
Her parents are very overprotective individuals. She is an only child, and an attractive girl. Certainly, they’re going to be worried. What parent wouldn’t? But when they have their daughter in tears almost every day, constantly worrying that she is a “bad person” for wanting to branch out and go her own way…well, I’m not sure that it’s right. I understand that my aunt and uncle want what is best for my cousin, but I can’t help but think they aren’t being just a little unfair, and it’s clear that they’re not ready to cut the cord.