Family Influence
I’m currently in Houston, Texas, visiting my grandparents before I move to Maine to work with an AmeriCorps program. As many of you already know, I’m very excited. The particular program is called The Game Loft, and it’s a youth program that utilizes non-electronic gaming (from Risk to historical war games to Dungeons and Dragons and everything in between!). I’m actually a little envious; I would have been really grateful to have this kind of organized gaming community during my especially crazy teenage years - I’m telling you, most people should get a medal for simply surviving adolescence.
During this “grand finale family tour,” as I’m calling it, I’m reminded of the evolving nature of family influence. I’m independent, and have been for many years. Often broke, but not to the point of requiring financial support of family. I’m unwilling to do that, and have been since I turned 18 - which is why I used federal financial aid to get through college (a mistake, but hindsight is 20/20). I didn’t want anyone to tell me what to do. And now, in my twenties, my family certainly can’t give me orders, and they know it. If any of them said so much as “Don’t go to Maine” I’d tell them exactly where to put it. I’m exaggerating, I would be nice and reasonable, but pretty direct: “I’m going to Maine. Period. Love you, please come visit, see you soon!”
However, if I relied financially upon anybody, I would definitely have to answer to them. To repeat the above used euphemism, “Period.” End of story. And this is why, at 18, if you go to college with financial support from your parents, you are essentially taking the next step in high school. It doesn’t matter that you’re “legally” an adult. Financially, you’re not - just like this student. So they have a say (rightfully so, too) about where you live, what you spend “your” money on, and yes, even your chosen course of study. That’s not a terrible thing - you probably won’t make the mistake of getting a fine arts degree with an emphasis on the deeper meaning of play-doh while under economic parental supervision.
If you’ve been completely dependent on your parents through high school, especially to such an extent that you’ve received an allowance rather than working part-time, you’re not ready to make your own decisions at 18 anyway. Want to learn to make your own decisions so that you don’t have to adhere to your parents’ directions? Get a 40-hour a week job and move out for at least a year before making the trek to college. Otherwise, they get a say. And parents, listen up: yes, you have a right to tell your kids what to do, regardless of age, if you’re financing the operation.
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I disagree. If a student approaches the conversation as an adult, she or he can have a conversation with a parent explaining the choice in major and why that choice was made (including why the parent’s choice was not made).
Honestly, whether it is the student or the parent paying, a student can change majors once in school and the parent would never know due to FERPA rules as long as the student never mentioned anything about those English classes rather than the Physiology and Anatomy ones.
However, being an adult and having a conversation is going to go much further and save a lot of grief for that eventual moment when the parent does find out (I’m thinking the graduation announcement if anything).
My parents had saved for my school for a long time and wanted to pay because their parents couldn’t pay for them to go. They would have been very disappointed if I had rejected it. I did not pursue the Chemistry or Engineering they wanted me to, choosing a liberal arts degree instead, but when I calmly explained why it was more interesting to me, they understood.
Often faculty can talk to parents too. English majors aren’t always going to be living in cardboard boxes on the streets and faculty can tell parents that. They can show that their $80,000+ isn’t going to waste and show careers that previous graduates have had. This is something many of my colleagues do.
I would have told the Bio/English torn student to try out both majors for awhile and see what happens. Perhaps science journalism might prove to be interesting, etc.
Parents have a right to have a conversation, but the final say? I don’t think so. That’s determining the young adult’s whole future and putting an awful lot of pressure on him or her. “Go get $80,000+ on your own or pursue the career that I want you to.” Not a decision any 18 year old should have to make.
I would have to agree with Christen.
A very close friend of mine had the option of going to the ONE college that her parents would pay for entirely, or financing the whole thing on her own which she didn’t know how to do at age 18. Her parents would not listen to any argument of not wanting to go there, not fitting in, etc. That is where they went, therefore, that is where she would go too. They chose her major too which again was not what she was happy doing. They wanted her to be rich and successful (whose parents don’t?) in the field they thought she would make the most money in.
And…
She hated every minute of it. Hated the classes, hated her classmates, hated her roommates, and the eventual outcome of this was one semester in she dropped out entirely and had a massive falling out with her parents that lasted close to five years. Now, ten years later her husband has helped her to return to college in a field she is interested in and she was able to have a little more choice (though was somewhat confined to staying in the town they are settled in) AND is much, much happier.
So I do think parents should have input into the college choice, definately talk and have a conversation with them as a student about what you would like to do and where to go… but I believe if they are choosing to support you in college they are also choosing to support your decisions as to where to go and what major fits you best. Otherwise both parents and children are risking major relationship consequences and major life changers if things go wrong.