Parents who won't let go

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Before I went off to college, my father told me “Law, medicine, or disownment.”

I took him seriously. I didn’t have the guts to risk disownment, I didn’t think I could hack premed, and so after I finished my undergraduate degree, I went to law school. I graduated, and then I took the bar. I didn’t find employment as a lawyer. I wasn’t really looking.

I came home. I expected I’d stay for a week or two before finding my own place, embarking on a search for a non-law job, and generally getting my life together.

Life did not go according to plan. I haven’t lived with my parents in any meaningful sense since I was fifteen (boarding school and then college and grad school) and my mother is delighted to have me home. My father is trying his damndest to put me in touch with people who know people so that I can work as a lawyer here in the country where my parents are currently living.

I did my requisite summer at a law firm, and that was bad enough. Just the thought of working at a law firm without knowing that it’ll be over at the end of the summer makes me feel claustrophobic. I was severely depressed (not suicidal, but close) during my first year of law school; I’m afraid it’ll happen again.

I have tried to tell my parents that their plans don’t line up with what I want. That I would rather take my chances moving back to a country where I haven’t lived for over a decade and don’t know anyone and trying for the career I actually want, than follow their directions and work at a job I have no interest in whatsoever.

My mother won’t go for it. She says she refuses to let me ruin my life, and she’s guilting me into following orders. I know she’s guilting me into it, but it’s still working. She’s tried to tell me that I can quit after a few years, that I can go off and chase my harebrained dreams later, but I have to practice law first.

I have money saved. I’d really love to book a plane ticket and leave tomorrow. But that’s something of a nuclear option - it would be tantamount to cutting off all contact. It’s silly, but I’d like to have their okay. I’d like them to tell me that they can’t stop me from screwing up my own life. I’d like to them to let go, but I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that will make them agree.

Thoughts, advice?

2

Personally I would sit down and tell them that you have made your decision, and that you would love their support but you’re going to leave regardless. I would explain how miserable you are and that you need this change to be happy.

Then, assuming they try to convince you otherwise and don’t accept your decision, I would get on the next possible plane. Imagine the immense relief you will feel when you are on your way to a new life!

There’s only one person who gets to live your life and that’s you…

3

I’m finding it difficult to formulate advice for you on this. I think it sounds like you should leave and do your own thing - you’re fortunate to have some money saved up. But I also think that if you were *ever *going to do that, you would have done it by now, and you wouldn’t be here asking for advice/thoughts/comments.

My parents were very supportive with my various career endeavors (they even encouraged me to be an acting major in college!), so I can’t relate to the pressure you seem to be getting from your parents. But I did force myself to leave the comfort of my parents’ home after grad school, scrape up what little cash I could, and drive to Los Angeles to find a better life and career for myself. I moved 3,000 miles away to a city where I only knew one person, and I created an awesome life for myself. I had no idea what was going to happen. It was an adventure, and 10 years later, I can’t imagine having had done things differently.

So I would totally encourage you to leave your parents’ home, find out what career or work would make you happy, and pursue the hell out of that. Hopefully your parents will eventually come around when they see that you’re happy and successful.

Good luck!

4

smaje1, my mother is very, very good at guilting me into following orders. I came close to packing up and leaving - found a place to live and even had a potential job interview lined up, just had to buy the plane ticket - and then I talked to her and didn’t go through with it.

5

That’s rough. But like someone said above, you are the only one who has to live your life. Your mom doesn’t get to live your life. She has her own life to live.

I recently realized that my mom has a tendency to manipulate me into doing what *she *wants me to do. She wasn’t really concerned with what was best for me; she wanted what was vest for her. She’s not a bad person, not at all, but I think she thinks she just knows best, you know?

Once I realized she’d been manipulating me all this time, I was able to see things from a different angle. It made it a lot easier for me to tell her “Thanks for your advice, but I’ll be doing things my own way instead.” Your mom probably loves having you around, and will miss you terribly if you leave. That’s why she doesn’t want you to go. And that’s selfish of her - but she probably doesn’t even realize she’s being selfish. She thinks she’s helping you. But she needs to live her own life and let you live yours.

But for real, no one here on the message board is going to convince you to leave. You’re going to have to convince yourself of what’s best for you. You’ve probably spent so long trying to do what everyone else wants you to do that you don’t know what you really want. Try to listen to your heart and go with your gut.

6

Look, sport, I know it’s easy for me to say this from a distance, but it’s time for you to grow up and be an adult. Unless you are some kind of butthead, your mother is never going to want you to leave, that’s the way most mothers are.

Your parents’ approval cannot make you happy. You might, someday, inherit a pile of their money. What price are you willing to pay for that?

If you end up practicing law in spite of your feelings about it, you will have no-one but yourself to blame.
Roddy

p.s. yes, I know I don’t understand your situation, or your cultural hoo-haw, and all that other crap, but that doesn’t change the truth of what I said above.

7

Sleep, I grew up with parents who are a lot like yours, so I sympathize completely. It’s hard to see when you’re being manipulated by guilt trips when it’s such a common everyday thing. You’re in your mid-twenties, right? You’re old enough for your parents to (try to) see you as no longer a child, but first … you have to convince yourself of your own adulthood, your own independence.

This is your life. It’s the only one you get - there are no do-overs (that we know of). Your parents will not be living your life for you - they will not be in despair over a job they hate; it’ll be you. It’s also not in your power to make them see any of this, or to approve of your plans. You can’t “get” them to do anything, and it’s long past time they stopped trying to “get” you to do what you hate.

I’m in a hurry and can’t stay here much longer, but please PM me if you need a sympathetic ear, or even just a sounding board. I can’t tell you how much it helped to tell people “My mother said X and did Y” and hear their reactions, because I’d lost all perspective on how normal people do and don’t interact healthily. (Hint: your family does not.)

If your parents truly love you then they want you to be happy. Their ideas of what will make you happy make sense to them, but it doesn’t make them right.

(Also, no one thinks much of a lawyer who needs Mommy’s approval.)

My advice: Go. Plan, plan thoroughly, but go. It’s quite possible for you to have a relationship with them on your own terms, one that doesn’t involve them dictating your life for you.

8

You might consider talking to a therapist or counselor. Such a person would be a “safe” listener, who would not have your parents’ agenda, and who could help you formulate strategies for dealing with your relationship with your parents.

9

You need to print this out, post it where you can see it, carry it around in your pocket . . .

Your parents have already had a shot at living a life they way they think it should be led. Now it’s your turn. If they absolutely cannot come to understand that and let you live your own life, then yes, you are better off without them.

10

Roderick, I’ve never heard it described as “cultural hoo-ha,” but it’s not a bad way of putting it.

purplehorseshoe, I may take you up on that offer.

Tom, I’ve had two therapists who were very good at listening, but pants at strategies. I rather wish I could put my whole family in therapy - I think they need it.

11

I feel the need to play Devil’s Advocate on this one… it just kind of seems to me that there’s so many, diverse fields of law to work in. Corporate work, family law, real estate, oil & mineral, civil rights, entertainment, estate law… and really? there’s nothing at all in there that sounds remotely workable?

What, incidentally, IS your ideal line of work? And couldn’t you find some legal angle to it to practice law AND work with something you love?

Of course, there’s the financial aspect to all this. Law degrees cost money, big money, and either your parents have helped finance it, or you’ve got a mountain of loans, or you are Superman and worked your way through debt-free, but most likely you’ve taken help from them financially to get your law degree. And of course, there’s a feeling of entitlement from them. (“I paid the tuition for that kid, now he’s going to toe the line until I’m satisfied that I’m getting a good return on my investment!”)

12

Sarabellum1976, no matter what variety of law it is, it involves sitting in an office at a desk for long hours, doing paperwork. It took me a while, but I figured out that I hate sitting in an office at a desk for long hours doing paperwork.

I want to cook professionally. I had two restaurant internships (stages) during summer vacation in college, and worked part-time for a caterer during law school. I am fully aware that the work is brutal and unglamorous and the pay is crap, but it’s satisfying and even at its most exhausting, I never dreaded going to work in the morning. Food interests me in a way that nothing else does.

My parents did finance the law degree, and my mother is definitely holding that over my head. I go back and forth on feeling very guilty about this and refusing to feel guilty about this, because I was offered a full scholarship at a lower-ranked school and they insisted on a school where they paid full freight.

13

What impresses me is that you graduated law school and passed the bar, despite no passion for the law. A lot of people would have passive/aggressively flunked out of law school, or graduated but never attempted the bar. If you could do that, you have it in you to make whatever changes you need to.

14

You’ll never make the move until you realize that you are the only one in control of your destiny. As long as you allow yourself to be swayed by guilt…anyone’s guilt…you will neither grow up nor will you ever be a good chef/lawyer/baker/beggerman/thief.

15

They paid for a law degree that they forced you to take - I think you can shake off the guilt for that one.

You know, I hate to label your parents as abusive, but parents are supposed to help their children grow up to be individuals, not younger versions of themselves or the adult that the parent thinks they should be. What your parents are doing is very disrespectful of you as a human being who is separate from them.

16

Your problem is simple you won’t face your fear.

And there is plenty of blame to go around. As a parent, their job was to prepare you for a life as an independent adult. Well they didn’t do that.

Now you have to do this.

You have to face up to your fear, leaving your parents.

I had a fear of flying, It was so bad it was embarrassing. I got over it, but eventually you HAVE TO FACE what you fear. As scared as I was to get on a plane, as many books, pills, relaxation techniques I practiced, I was never gonna get over this fear, until I faced it.

Your opening quesiton is just a mass of “I’m afraid this will happen…”

You want to change but don’t know where to start.

Here’s a starting point. Go to your library and get a book called “How To Stop Worrying And Start Living,” by Dale Carnegie. It’s an oldie but a goodie.

He devotes chapters to everything you describe.

Sit down, ask yourself “What’s the worst that will happen.” Then write that down. Then ask yourself, “How will I handle this”?

You are starting life in the worst time to find a job since the 1930s.

You are a lawyer, you don’t want to be, fine. Things change. I can’t expect your parents to support you, but that’s their reasoning.

Do families cut you off? You bet, I’m a gay male who has no contact with anyone of his family in 30 years. In those days, if a family cut you off, they did it.

OK I survived without them. I didn’t crawl in a hole and die. Fine I could’ve done better by not being who I am, but I would still go through it again.

You’re parents may cut you off, it’s their loss. And remember this, most likely one of these days they’ll be dead and you won’t be. Are you gonna be happy having lived your life, for some people that aren’t around anymore?

If Mama guilts you say, “I’m sorry I wasted your money. I’m going to get a job as a cook. Here is the payment plan, I’ve worked out so I can repay you for the education you gave me.”

Hand her the payment plan to be effective six months after you graduate from cooking school and get a job.

You want your way and you want your parents to like it. It ain’t gonna happen, so you’re going to have to stand up to your folks, stop being afraid and face the music.

And it won’t be pleasant. But sometimes you have to go through some unpleasantness to get to where you are going.

17

If someone pressures you into something, it isn’t your fault if they waste money doing it. Sucks to be her. Doesn’t have to suck to be you.

You have some money. You have a law degree and have passed the bar. These are your fallback positions.

Going along to get along is so easy. Oh sure, you don’t get to do what you want, but someone else does all the decision-making and you just drift along, doing what you’re told. That’s a great life for a pet, not a person.

18

The fact that they paid for your law school in no way obligates you to make a career as a lawyer. That was their choice. If it will ease your conscience, pay them back a little at a time, as you can afford it. But you don’t owe them your happiness or your life.

You say your Mom is great at laying on the guilt trips…what if you didn’t give her the opportunity? What if you just wrote your parents a letter explaining why you’ve left for them to find on the kitchen table? It will be a lot harder for her to guilt you from miles away. I know some people will see this as the coward’s way out, but sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you gotta do.

19

So what you don’t want to tell Mama is that you want to be a ‘Cook’, but a lawyer turned chef.

Don’t you need a job right now? I guess with lawyering it’s all or nothing, part time, moonlighting doesn’t exist. So can you work as a lawyer while pursuing your real passion part time with the idea to go full time in the future?

Take a job where you want to try and live, slowly slice your parents out of the cooked goose that is your life. Start a new soup, and taste test all the way until it’s done the way you like it.

You have options, you should be happy! :wink:

20

My parents kicked me out at 17 because I wanted to be a music major… I wasn’t happy about being thrown out, but I had to do what I wanted to do. I eventually ended up an English major (which didn’t please my parents any more than music), and eventually, I ended up making my amends with my parents. It was a tough time getting to this point, but it was worth it.