Become an Adult by Ignoring What Your Parents Taught You

A few years into my Ph.D. in Australia, I flew back to the US for a workshop in Northern California. At the time, I was having difficulties with my supervisors (not exactly rare during the PhD) but my difficulties involved them not wanting to pay for my education. That put my bill at around 20 grand for a semester, and I had at least 3 of those left. Stings.

This battle had been ongoing for months. I’m meeting with university officials, I’m looking up scholarships, and I am very close to hacer-ing un ‘freak out’. For the monolingual, that’s Spanish for “getting ready to lose my shit.”

I'm also calling my parents at home to figure out what I'm going to do. The best option seems to be: quit this PhD. I hate it, I’m not having fun, and it’s going to cost $60 grand??? Hard pass.

What’s worse is that my parents have chosen this time to be most unhelpful. Which is unusual for them. Both my mom and dad have been excellent sources of wisdom, advice, and insight throughout my life. This time, not so much.

They're like, “…but have you thought about this decision?”

No, you silly geese (who I love very much), the kid who has historically overthought every single thing in his life is just deciding to throw away 3 years of work, the friends he's made, and his dream of being the type of college professor who shapes people's lives for the better. I'm just gonna quit on all of that on a whim.

FFS, I’m not a toddler throwing a tantrum here.

What's perhaps even more obnoxious is that neither would straight up tell me "I think this is a bad idea and you will regret this.” I honestly could understand, maybe even respect that feedback.

Instead, our phone calls consist me of telling them what's going on and what I'm thinking about and I'm being met with..... silence. Extended silence. The kind of silence that says "this is dumb, you are dumb, and we don't approve" except no one actually says it, which makes it 1000x worse.

Nothing but crickets to see and hear here.

I am historically not great with feelings. For me to pour out that I am really and deeply struggling with the one area of my life that I have always been great at and then to be met with the sound of my small winged insect friends^ here… Not my favorite.

So I'm there for this workshop and I'm also there to figure out what in the french fries I'm going to do next. My day-to-day mood is I hate everyone and the word of the day would be rage.

Fortunately, the workshop is really nice. It's a bunch of fellow PhD students doing work that they care about and being very willing to help any of us who are struggling. (It is one of the real benefits of the PhD: being exposed to so many wonderful, clever, and kind people).

As I was back on the continent of my birth, I arranged for my parents to meet me in LA before I flew to Germany next. They graciously accepted.

We are staying with a family friend. It's the first night and he asks, "So what is your PhD about?" And not one, but both of my parents also turn to me and say, "Yeah, what is your PhD about?"

fkn…what now???

I've been doing this for 3 years. It's the only thing I talk about. It's the only thing I do. And you, my parents, who presumably love me, still don't know??? Wtf is this?

And at that moment, 2 things click in my brain:

• 1) my parents don't know because they don't care. And I mean in that in the best way possible. They've never cared what I do, because they love me regardless of what I pursue and how it ends up. (And that's as soppy as this is going to get).

• 2) The second thing is "You two have 0 specific relevant knowledge when it comes to this PhD. It’s not your fault, but you have no idea what is going on, you silly salamanders. You cannot help me with this decision."

And that was that. The path to adulthood in one moment: I have outgrown my parents. They cannot help anymore. I have to figure this out on my own.

This realization is... terrifying. The people who love me most, who have always given advice, who have always led me to right, can’t do that anymore. The path I’m on and the world I live in is different from what they know and what they have always known.

On the other, I feel strangely... empowered. I can figure this out. I have to. This is no one else's problem but mine.

Part of being an adult is not only learning how to stand on your own two feet, but crucially, figuring out what your code to a successful life is going to be. That can be informed by what you learned from your parents, but it probably shouldn’t be a word for word copy. You are not them, they are not you, and the world you live in is not the same. Adapt accordingly. Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash.

There’s a portion of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz where he discusses how in childhood, we are domesticated by our parents, our teachers, and by society at large. This is largely a good thing: it’s not appropriate to shit your pants wherever and whenever you like. However, this always embeds certain conditions and certain rules about what is appropriate. And that can lead to behaviors and mindsets as a child that become problematic as an adult. For example, always doing things for the approval of my parents leads me to pursue external validation as opposed to asking myself if this is something I actually want. Ruiz points out that much of what it means to become an adult means becoming aware of these internal rules and eciding whether or not htey continue to serve us. We get to choose. We have to choose. That is what it means to be a real adult: choosing your own rules (or principles) about what it means to live a successful, meaningful life.

After this experience, my new principle became that I am the critical point of failure. I may very well fail, fall down, or miss out, but I am also not reliant on anyone else but me to solve this thing called life. So I will. All I'll need from my parents is that they're going to love me no matter what. Which is what they've always given in the first place. Just don't ask them what my PhD was about.