The last time I remember my parents helping me with my homework was in 2nd grade when I was learning hook-ed on puh-honics – and it totuhlly work-ed fuh meh.

My mom said  somewhere around 4th grade was the cutoff  point – when she stopped asking me if I had homework or if I had something for her to sign. Randi always tells the story of when she wasn’t ready on time for school one day, and mom said “let’s go, time to go!” and she walked out the door and started driving down the driveway…sans Randi. Randi had to run and catch up to the car and all was well. Lesson learned. hahaha Randi still isn’t always punctual, but hey – who is? She is however very independent just like me, we can hold our own.

I even remember some of my friends’ moms would actually go through their backpacks (in JUNIOR HIGH!!!!!) to check for stuff their children needed to do. This seems immensely silly to me – but so does beating your children and some parents do that all the time – guess I don’t understand that either, cause it was never done to me.

During this current exam period from Hell (I’ve taken 4 so far, 1 to go!), I’ve heard so many students say stuff to the effect of “if I fail a test, my parents will be so pissed”  - by the way, it’s necessary to mention at this point that exams are so difficult here, failing an exam is not an isolated or rare occurrence. I think it’s rarer if someone actually passes ALL of their exams on the first try. They even give tolerance points where you can “fail” a test with one or two points under passing and “cash in” points to get through without having to retake the exam {you can only do this a few times…and we don’t have any tolerance points for my masters program :( first year ever that they don’t have them…sucks.} Either way, back to the point.

I NEVER remember worrying about what my parents would think or how they would feel if I didn’t do well in school, and I certainly don’t worry about it now – I’m 22 and getting my masters, I’m certainly not in it for my parents. I didn’t do any of my schooling “for my parents” I did it for myself. I graduated high school with a 4.0/4.0 at the top of my class and graduated university with 3.883/4.0 magna cum laude from Tech FOR MYSELF, not anyone else. And in this way, I believe that’s why I was successful at it. The only stress that was put upon me was from my own crazy mind. My mom would usually be the one calming me down saying “a B is still great!” Even just the other day at lunch, I was b*tching about my exams and spending 10-12 HOURS A DAY at the library feeling like I’m getting no where and how I just knew I would fail my Competitive Analysis and Strategy exam (which I think I did…this morning) and I was (am) VERY upset about it, and mom said “well, if you do, you’ll just take it again in September and it’ll all be fine.” Don’t ya think that’s a lot nicer than “if you fail this test, we will be so disappointed in you…you have to try harder.” Cause guess what? That’d probably have the OPPOSITE effect, I can tell ya that.

I’m not really sure why I felt the need to share this, I guess it just struck me as odd that so many students are out there only doing it for their parents/family – that’s what their family expects of them, so they do it. I guess it just seems strange to me, as I was reared to believe in myself, do things on my own, do them for myself, and think for myself. In that way, I never needed someone to sit me down at a table and say “study.” and “work. now.” I did it on my own…with some relatively good outcomes, I think.

So I’m not telling you how to rear your children or what your parents might be doing or have done wrong! I guess, since my parents are some of the only people who read this blog, I’m actually writing it to them…to thank them. I appreciate to no end the fact that I grew up knowing they’d always be proud of me and that they expected nothing more from me than to be the best person I could be under definitions that I set. It’s nice to have unending support from the people you love the most.

Throughout the years, I think I have made my parents very proud – but that’s not why I did it.

- Ross