P-C, we all fuck up. In my opionion you fucked up in how you broke this news. Now the test is how you deal with this fuck up.

Hmmm, there's a lot of fucking in this post.

Ah well...fuck it.

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Hil, I love the cut.

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I figured my mom would be in a good mood, and I wanted to ruin it, in the spirit of giving

If loving this line is wrong, I don't want to be right. Because in a perfect world with perfect relationships, it would just be mean but in this one? It drips honesty to me. It just speaks of the conflict between parent and child. We might like to think it doesn't exist but it does. And as much as parents "just want you to be happy," they often want you to just be happy in the exact way they think is best. I didn't read it as gloating for what that is worth. YReadMV.

I think that's a good sign, as far as gestures of acceptance go.

Oh I do hope that your parents come to be very accepting and supportive of your choice. As you said, this was not a rash decision of the moment, it was months in the making. (((P-C)))

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I got really depressed, the Christmas I was twenty and told everyone at dinner that I hated myself and where I was living and wanted to die.(I did, but I would give anything not to have said that the way I did. And I think my dad is a jerk for not forgiving me, since I have done a 180 emotions-wise but I guess he has a right to not...the jerk part comes because I have asked him if there is anything I can do to make it right and he won't allow me to and he acts like it happened last Thursday.) I really hope your family worksit out better than this.

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Aw, Erika. And has your dad actually not forgiven you, or did it just turn him into Overprotective Man? 'Cause not forgiving seems damn harsh, but Overprotective Man, although awfully hard to live with, is at least understandab;e. After my dad's second heart attack, the poor guy couldn't get up to go to the john without my Mom asking him how he was feeling and what was wrong. She could not stop seeing him as completely fragile, no matter how much it bugged him.

Sounds like P-C's family is already handling it better--they seem on the road to accepting it after only two conversations. That's pretty good, considering that they love him and clearly have been hoping for this for a long time (and seem over-invested). My BF's parents refused to pay a single penny towards college when he told them he didn't want to be a doctor, which is what they wanted for him. Took them YEARS to chill. Now he has a good relationship with them,. although they still do the "corrective" comments whcih P-C talked about his folks doing. He just zens out and that seems to work.

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He's still pissed, but he's kind of, not normal. It's not all my fault. I just wanted P-C not to be alone on the Holiday Angst Train.

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He can't forgive you for saying you wanted to die? I just can't...

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE FORGIVEN FOR, ERIKA. YOU WERE TWENTY AND DEPRESSED.

Sorry, not yelling at you, just to you. Was it sullen and melodramatic, or whatever? Maybe. I don't know your whole story, but it hardly seems like something that he should even need to forgive, never mind find himself unable to forgive. On top of that, spurning your attempts to make amends? Grrrr.

P-C, I think you sprung this thing on your folks, on your mom's birthday, when they didn't even know you'd been struggling with the issue, and I just can't get really angry at them about their reaction. Maybe they're too controlling. I don't know, but you're an adult. Control is a two way street.

The only way one adult can control a second adult is if the second adult allows it. If/when you're (at least partially) relying on them for money, they are likely to feel they have more remaining parental rights than you'd like them to assert. The only way to stop that, is to take care of yourself. Be their son, not their child, if they're too controlling of your direction in life, for your comfort. If, however, you need the financial support, you've sorta gotta take the gift with purchase.

My parents had some say over what I did in school (their issue was actually where I went more than my direction), because they were paying for some of it. When I moved back home after college, I knew I was bound to live by their rules, if I wanted to essentially live off them. I paid board, but still, it was a lot easier life financially than getting an apt. To their credit, they were fairly reasonable with me.

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After my dad's second heart attack, the poor guy couldn't get up to go to the john without my Mom asking him how he was feeling and what was wrong

Hubby reaches for his heart rate monitor and I'm all "do we need to go to the hospital?" And he gives me a dirty look. Which I deserve.

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Now, I think maybe. But I'm not out of my mind now. Hello? (I think I was expecting too much from them because I don't think I personally stopped being a kid till I was 25.) But I was also in real trouble.

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Things come out at holidays, I think, because very often there's a whole "Oh, we're all together and Norman Rockwell should have used us as his models of the perfect family, isn't it grand?" thing, and that can cause the people brooding in the corners to snap.

Alternately, the case for "If she's not in a good mood now, I don't know when she's going to be" is a good one. Unfortunately, humans being, well, human, things rarely go as smoothly as we like. Darn those stupid humans.

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I'm totally wanting to kick Erika's dad's ass.

My feeling is you can demand that people close to you respect your decisions, but not that they understand them. Maybe P-C's parents will never get why he wants to do science writing. So what? Why should they? I look at my parents and brothers and there are things they do I will NEVER understand. They ain't me. I know both my brothers are baffled and maybe even a bit disressed that BF and I have been together for 11 years and aren't married. S'okay. They're both more trad than I am and they don't have to agree or even approve, they just have to respect my choice. And I, for my part, will say nothing about my littlest brother's HIDEOUS all-white living room.Well, not to him, anyway.

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