Help Dealing with Parents

Sge:no,

One of the biggest hurdles in my rewilding is my parents. Unfortunately, I still live with them… and although they respect my interests and passions to a certain extent, (e.g., letting me keep hides in the freezer, letting me work at a primitive skills camp, letting me go into the woods for hours at a time), they don’t see my interests as anything more than a hobby. They don’t understand that this is my path in life. This manifests itself as them persuading me that I need to go to college and that I need to take every single goddamn regents test that exists! When I tell them that the only reasons I’m still in school are 1) my community and 2) that a teacher is teaching me the Gayok:hoño (Cayuga) language, they yell at me about my responsibility as a student and that I need to get the highest level of diploma when I graduate. Unfortunately, I actually get somewhat high grades in school, but only because I care about passing and getting the hell out of there! They don’t see that schoolwork depresses me and that I need to rewild, they just care about me graduating with high grades so I can get into a good college and make a lot of money at a good job that will end up seriously depressing me. It’s really hard trying to make them understand. Recently I found myself thinking, “Once I turn 18, I’m doing what I want and getting the hell away from them.” Then I thought, these are my parents! I don’t want to do what they want and then just run away when I’m finally “free” of their influence. Anyway, what should I do? How can I get them to let me be who I am and stop forcing their ways upon me? I don’t want to drop out, as I still want to learn Gayok:hoño and I want to stay a part of my community. Anything is appreciated and thank you in advance!

Sorry that this has been a bit of a rant, I hope it’s not hard to understand. I just want to deal with my family without breaking ties with them. I want to have a somewhat good relationship with them, because I can’t just make myself unrelated to them.

High school is something you really should finish. I know it’s tedious, and actually a bit disgusting to see so many people obsessed with petty cr… stuff. But you really should graduate, because you will need a job for a while.

College though, you should avoid. That amount of debt will seriously delay any unconventional lifestyle, and if your heart’s not in it, you’ll either fail or get the wrong degree anyway. There is absolutely no reason to go to college when your heart’s not in it, that path only leads to regret. I got great grades in HS, was pressured into college by my parents, wasted a ton of money, and failed out because I could not force myself to take the work seriously anymore, and I couldn’t stand being around the sort of people who actually enjoyed college. (The naive rich kids who believe they can solve all the world’s problems by Liking “Save the Polar Bears” on Facebook on their iPhones.)

If I was in your position, I’d stop telling your parents that you don’t want to go to college, and start saying you’re going to wait a year or two after high school is done. There’s no law saying you can only enter college right after HS, a lot of people wait a couple years. In your case though, that’ll just be an excuse to give yourself some freedom and to stop yourself from getting locked into a future you don’t want, without creating a rift between you and your parents right away, while you still have to live with them.

OneEarth,

Thanks for the response! I have no plan on dropping out, I actually am gaining some valuable information, both from my teachers and from my experiences.

I’ll tell them that I want to take a gap year. The last thing I want to do is waste my time and money learning pointless information and being around people that I don’t like. Any tips for getting around unnecessary tests that they want me to take?

Thanks again!

OneEarth,

I would like to counter your statement that someone needs to graduate high school to get a job. As a high school drop out myself, I can tell you that this is simply untrue in my experience. Though I experience “white male privilege” in our culture so that may play into it. I felt and still feel today, that high school was probably the biggest waste o my time. My only regret is that I didnt drop out earlier. I’ve never had a problem getting a job due to my lack of diploma or college degree.

Scout,

My parents told me my whole life to follow my dreams, yet when those dreams became rewilding, they wouldn’t get behind them. So I just ran away for a year and a half.

I don’t recommend that anyone drop out of high school or run away. I recommend that people follow their intuition. Not their heart, mind, or dreams. Follow your intuition. You already know what you need to do if you listen, and it sounds like you are: staying in school for language/community. If that’s your lot, you’ll just have to live with your parents expectations until you can move on. Mine came around when they realized this wasn’t a “phase”, perhaps yours will to.

a job is a job, a career is something else depending on what you want… If I started my music career right now I would not be able to get into music publishing without a degree… I dont have a degree and my problem with that is a degree does not mean you have talent… it really depends what you want in your life. at times you have to play the game at other times you dont… high school or college does not mean you will make good money… And we know it isnt always about money… but at your age I didnt know what I wanted… or what I wanted to be/do…too many things will still influence you in the next 5 or 10 years…that at this point you dont even know about…one doesnt know what they dont know… A education continues through out your life… I feel we we are always students… stop learning and you die…

I ended up running major music publishing companies , today that would not be allowed for the most part, without a degree… always exceptions and then I was an independent and was self employed for half of my career as a publisher and record producer… Go to Songconsultant.com for my creds… the names some of which you may not know are songwriters of hits etc… mostly from the 70s and 80s easing into the 90s, the artists from the same era… . my career allowed me lots of dirt time and practicing skills etc… Most jobs dont allow for enough time for your self… and are dead ends anyway… I enjoyed a very successful career in the music biz… beat the odds… for 40 years … I kept saying to myself and they pay me for this… and Im having a blast… and get to take off and practice skills… sometimes for up to 3 months at atime depending on projects… then I was locked in a studio with some goofy group for 6 weeks or so… then freedom of the wilds… I had three kids to take of so that was an incentive also… but they recall me pulling them out of school to takeoff for the wilderness…the teachers would go nutz… but today they all do well… and are fine peeps… School is a phase that has nothing to do with the real world… it will pass… I do get a kick out of hischool reunions ,I was supposed to end up in Alcatraz or some such… fooled 'em… I like that, revenge in a way… Im way older than most here my 60th reunion will be in a few years,or next year… (crap how did that happen)… for those of us that are left…

I am way too immature to be this old… hope this didnt ramble too much…

Dude… and yes that is my name…

Dude, Sam, Peter,

This is a rough one huh, because we have ALL been there. And each of us has made it whatever crazy path we took.

Dude is dead on - there is a difference between a job and career. I have always liked the words Forrest Carter wrote in the Education of Little Tree, when the Grandpa is explaining to his grandson why he makes moonshine in the mountains - “Every man needs a trade.” I would modify that to - “every person”, but the point is made.

The thing is, the universe is way too complex to control. You have no control in this, whatever decision you make. But there are outgoing waves you can catch. This is what your intuition, what Peter talks about, will help you with. In the meanwhile, your parents and family are your treasure. Do what you can to make sure they know you love and care bout them, because as a rewilder, you’re probably going to put them through hell. Haha. But not so funny to your parents. There is magic there though, some of the oldest magic, in family, just like the Lakota say “All my relations”. Super important.

As you jump stories, from one where humans rule the earth, to the other one where humans are the children of the earth, your intuition is going to be the smartest guide around. It’s a skill to listen to it, and the best time to start practicing is right now.

Having said that, I think I can say that we - Dude, Peter, me, and anyone else here - can show you that you can choose just about any crazy old thing and have it work out - dropping out, staying in, going to college, running off to the woods, becoming a stockbroker, whatever. Because what matters is the path marked out for you, not for any of the rest of us. And I think that’s what we all have had in common - that in fact makes us all rewilders - is our relationship to our intuition. Some things just feel right. Until they don’t. And then you move on.

Every once in a while I want to look back and search for the mistakes I made, only to find out later that the “mistake” was actually a genius move on my part, and then I think something else was a mistake. For the most part I’ve found that nothing is a mistake - I’m constantly moving forward on my path as a child of the earth, and all I can do is slow it down, but then the lessons are just learned deeper, so no harm no foul. I can’t take a single step anymore without it being an act of rewilding, even typing on this keyboard right now. Talking to you is changing me too.

It’s all rewilding, as long as you listen deeply enough.

I hope that my previous post didn’t scare anyone away because I wrote it at a time when I was pretty angry. But fights keep happening and I’m still pretty lost. I really need other people’s experiences. What has worked for you dealing with stubborn parents/guardians/loved ones standing in the way of your dreams? Has running away worked? Has completely ignoring any kind of conflict worked? Has fighting with them until they’re too tired to blame you worked? I really would like some help with this, and I’m sure future generations of pre-collapse rewilders would need this too. Thank you to all who have helped!

Your own well being is a very important thing… you cannot live someone elses life … and hey cant lead yours… parents are for the most part well meaning and have a difernt set of experiences… jobs are not what they once were … very few will work in one place for 40 years those days are gone… jobs offer no security anymore, if they ever really did…

today is paving new roads to a career in whatever you choose but it it still is a rocky road… academic ideas are not what the real world offers in reality… trying to convince anyone to your way of thinking is a deadend in most cases… like being a republican or a democrat… they will keep their own thinking… being a rewilder is not a thing they want hear because it makes no sense to them, and it is really not a means to an end… you have to incorporate a real plan to support that life style… right now folks are feeling their way of doing jhust that… why because it is an experiment… with no real results for a long term… short term yes and it might lead to other things in your life…

leading someone into a life is a serious consequence, and could fail big time… my feeling is just dont talk about it and go your own way anyway you can… it is your dream play it out…try and think it through…research folks who go on their own into the wilderness … wilderness can be in your own mind not just physical… You have pkenty of time to take action for yourself… but it is your own call … I suggest you do not take of the pain of others, it is yourself that you have to live with…own whatever skills you will need

Dude … … …

Sam this is the first time I’ve come back to this thread since November.

I hope other rewilders will share their experiences here. I think I pretty much shared mine. Great options are choosing to “study abroad” and taking advantage of that time to connect with rewilders and other types (permaculturalists etc.) in other areas to study with some breathing room.

You’ll just have to get creative. Famous tracker and teacher Jon Young studied indigenous education strategies when he went to college!

College probably more than anything else can be a fantastic opportunity to network and find new options. I tried college a couple times. I went to (counting…1, 2, 3, 4) colleges total and dropped out from each one, but I got to travel to Russia, meet indigenous Nanai people in the Russian Far East, I learned loads of languages and generally just had a blast. Then I got saddled with debt (poor family) and that wasn’t so funny. But hell. There are ways.

Or, you turn 18, and take off and make your own path for a while. Send your family post-cards.

I hope other folks will chime in here.

Sorry I haven’t been on in awhile everyone, I’ve been pretty busy and got a lot done rewilding-wise.

Thanks for the response Dude. I read this awhile ago but didn’t know what to say. Keeping my goals to myself has so far seemed like the best course of action. It’s saved me from a lot of fights, because I know that no matter what they’ll try to force their image of their ideal son onto me, when I know my path and I know it will do more for myself and for the world.

Willem, thanks for revisiting this again. It seems there’s been a little bit of a “communication breakdown” (love that song). While I definitely love hearing of your experiences, i guess that the main reason I started this was not because I didn’t know my path or know what resources I’d need, but how I could make my path clearer to my parents. It sucks, knowing your vision and then having your parents make you feel guilty for that not being what they want. In other words, I hear my intuition, but having others yell at me about it makes it harder to follow.

That said, it is definitely helpful hearing from others about where they’ve been and what they’ve done. I see myself more along the “taking off at age 18” route :slight_smile: but I’m definitely gonna go around.

(Just curious Willem, were you on an episode of Portlandia?)

Anyway, thanks to all, I’m doing pretty well, and happy new year!

I just found this awesome organization and I think it applies to some of what has been spoken of here, should you choose to go outside of the traditional schooling route. There is even a page on there for parents.

http://www.openroadteens.org/new-page-1/

My advice would be to definitely finish high school, and then take a gap year (or two) before making any decisions about college. Finishing high school is meeting with your parents expectations and is a token of kindness and respect to them. If you drop out of high school, they will be majorly disappointed. But if you complete high school and then take a gap year, all they can do is hope and nag that you’ll go to college right away.

As for myself, I took a gap before college, and then another gap during college, before ultimately dropping out of college. What I found during those gap years was invaluable. I learned a lot about myself and grew as a person. Part of my motivation of dropping out of college was that in my other time I had made the connections and gained the experience I needed to do my own thing work-wise. Thus college became less and less relevant to my life.

I’m not against dropping out, but I also think it’s good to have solid alternate plans. Don’t run FROM something, but TO something else! :slight_smile:

Many parents come from an era when a degree meant you could get a well paying job… that was a leap from when I was in school and a high school education meant you get a good job…In todays world a dergee is common thing and something has to maKE YOU STAndout… and it isnt any academic scores… In truth today most good paying jobs are given to those who knew someone to start with who vouched for them… Without exception I know of no one who really got a great job with out some kind of previous contact.

when I graduated hi school I went to work in a machine shop… I instantly hated it so I left and joined the Marines… I didnt care much for that either… however once I got out and went to college it felt like a game of nonsense… My Marine Corps training helped me with discipline … but I still left that academic life… Through the years the lessons I learned in the Corps helped me more than any other single thing… FRom primitive skills to working jobs I didnt like … most in reality are not happy with their work… and live a life of quite desperation… I have mentioned before I was lucky and found a career as a record producer and a very successful music publisher, but the outdoor life saved me from going all the nutz… but I was 36 years old before that career kicked in for me… Mostly I was an independent , but heaed up a few large music companies of the corp… nature

being your own boss is a blessing and a curse… it is all on you period. the blessing was I could take off for 3 or 4 months in the wild come back to a production project and make more than decent money at times indecent money… 8)… I had kids to feed and all that comes with it… so I had to perform… I liked the music biz and hit a lick several times… not like a real job and I had plenty of those , truck driver , painter , loading dock worker , sales, which I sucked at… … carried hod for a brick layer… hard ass work… all dead end jobs… like most jobs really are… but this world still turns on a buck and just to set yourself up for a rewilder it has to be done with a plan , prudence comes to mind… the where is a biggy… the how is a mystery for you solve… no one is the same , just because so and so made it happen in a certain way , doesnt mean that same way will work for you, you have to find your own path… I have met several folks over the years who cannot stay out for week alone or with someone they like… too hrd and scary for them… Deep in our DNA is the wild calling but you have to understand the real life realities of rewilding… thinking about how it can be and what it really is are two different critters… Learn by doing in increments… is the best I think…

hope in some small way this might help… …

Dude

Willem asked for stories. While mine doesn’t have as much to do with conflicts with parents, it does revolve around conflicts with other relationships: Me as Myself, and Me as a Husband. Willem asked for stories. Here’s mine:

I’ve always been a late sleeper.

I was a C±student through high school. My parents also pushed for me to get a Regents diploma, and I complied. I went to college for Environmental Science and Forestry, because I had a passion for the outdoors since I was very young. I finished college, and started my career with a slightly-above-minimum-wage job collecting data on trees. Through all of this I never even knew about Rewilding; the idea would have been as alien to me as it no doubt is for Scout’s parents.

By this time (2005-ish) I was living in Pittsburgh, trying to settle into a nice, cozy Civ life and trying even harder to climb the proverbial ladder. (Mostly because my job wasn’t paying enough.) I married my fiancee. I made lots of great friends, and we all hung out on the town quite a bit. Then I saw one of those free local-scene newspapers. On the cover was this “grungy” dude with facial piercings, tattoos, & dreadlocks, wearing buckskins and showing off his tulip-poplar bark-basket. (I forget the guy’s name, but I’m sure he probably is/was a member here ;D). I stared at the cover with a lot of mixed feelings. At the time, his appearance was pretty disturbing to my sensibilities – I had been raised to think things like: “Well, THAT guy will never get a decent job”, etc. I read the article: something about “rewilding” or some crap like that. The guy lived in a pile of leaves. Just a bunch of dirt-hippies trying to mooch off the system. I brought the paper home with me (something I never, ever did), and the guy on the cover stared at me from my desk every time I sat down to play some video games. Just a bunch of dirt-hippies…

Just a crazy-person trying to glamorize volunteered homelessness…

Mooching off the system…

Just a bunch of… Man… How DID he make that bark basket…?

I kept re-reading the article. Cracks in the dam. Armor starting to rust. Over the next weeks and months I had dreams about meeting that guy on the cover. I wanted to talk to him, figure out why he was so crazy. I wanted to help him get a nice job, and move into a good apartment. Then I wanted to yell at him for being such a pompous ass – who the hell is this guy to look down his nose at how I live my life!? (See the utterly insane Civ double-think in that?) Then I wanted to kick down his little pile of leaves. When winter rolled around, I wanted to see if he was shivering in the snow so I could chuckle to myself about how much more awesome my life was.

But by spring I wanted to go build a pile of leaves to live in, myself. I figured out how he made that bark basket, and I was figuring out how buckskins were done. I had found the Anthropik blog and read everything Jason Godesky had to say on the topic. I was working up the courage to ask him if we could hang out.

And then, just like that, before I could meet anyone, I had to move again. My wife had been offered a huge and very lucrative job offer in Iowa (3x the salary I was making). Once I left Pittsburgh, Jason and his blog, and the grungy-looking guy in his pile of leaves faded from my memory for a time. It didn’t occur to me that this was something that was happening outside of Pittsburgh. And then, one day, somewhere around 2007’ish, it did, and I found Rewild.info.

I didn’t agree with everything Peter had to say about the subject – I still don’t, and that’s just fine. I found Derrek Jensen’s books, and Daniel Quinn, and John Zerzan. All of it rumbled around in my head, and I had to do a lot of wrestling with my worldview before anything made any sense. Most of the time I felt pretty insane, because I was, and I was trying to heal. I said some crazy things, and had some crazy ideas. I never acted on any of them, for good or ill.

Fast-forward a few years. I had to move again, but by then the dam was already beyond repair, and I had taken off that rusty armor. I started the long, slow process of healing myself (something that is still a work in progress). I was 26 already, so I didn’t have the conflicts with my parents that Scout had. I had a different problem: I was married, and my wife was not at all interested in Rewilding. She designs video games. Her life in Civ is, in her words “F****ng awesome!”.

It seems like a straight-forward conflict of interests: I wanted to live lifestyle A), she wanted to live lifestyle B), and we should probably just go get a divorce and be done with it. Then we could both move on to whatever we wanted. Right?

Right…?

The “problem” was we both still loved each other. We still do. There were a few times where we weren’t sure if it would work out. I felt trapped, and she felt responsible. Things were nearing the brink, and then something wonderful happened: EVERYTHING in our lives fell apart.

She lost her Awesome Civ Job (ACJ). We lost our awesome Civ house, as well as all our money in an effort to try and sell it. We jumped from state to state, from ACJ to ACJ that turned out to just be an abusive capitalist grind-house. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, when we felt like we were stabilizing again, we decided to have a kid. The stability is tenuous, but here we are. I work at an ACJ for an electric company doing forestry (read: creating artificial ecosystems), and she’s working another ACJ that’s lost a lot of its polish and luster.

Here we hit the wall. “I’m tired.” she told me one day. She had figured out the miserable truth that Civ didn’t love her the way she thought it did. She had played by all the rules, hit all the right notes, and it still chewed her up and spat her back out. During all of this, I started to get subsumed by Mother Culture again, and I was snoozing in the corner to her song. I had “bigger things to worry about”, MC told me. For a while, I believed her. My wife is still tired. She no longer dreams of living in a metropolis, making six-figures. But now all of my ranting makes more sense to her; there are cracks in the dam, and the armor is looking a little tarnished in spots. She’s talking about learning new skills, and living a “simpler” life. I don’t think that she’s ready to completely abandon Civ yet; literally everyone else we know lives there, and there is still a duality that we’re both wrestling with.

EPILOGUE: (because somewhere along the line, this became a freakin’ BOOK).

What does all of this mean? What is the point of this story? I’m still working on a lot of that, myself, but so far it’s this: Rewilding is infectious. Virulent. It gets under your skin and changes you from the inside out. It’s like a reverse zombie movie, and it’s awesome and depressing and terrifying and empowering. I’ve come a long way since I saw that newspaper in Pittsburgh, and I’ve got a long way to go. Like Willam said elsewhere, the only way out is through.

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More to Scouts original point:

It has been said elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Your parents love you, and they want you to be successful and happy. They want these things more than anything in the world, and have worked their whole lives to provide these things for you – to set you up for greater success than they ever had.

The problem is that their definition of “Success” and “Happy” is different than yours, and they literally cannot understand yours. They cannot see the path you are on – to them it just looks like thorns and brambles.

So try to keep that in mind while you figure out your next steps. Maybe it is possible to show them the path, and maybe not. But they only want to see you happy, and if you can eventually demonstrate that happiness to them, I’m sure they’ll come around to one degree or another.

~ Matthew

Hey guys! It’s been awhile!

So the past few months have been pretty hectic for me, but I’ve had a lot of great self-discovery and i’m pretty much at the highest point in my life I’ve ever been! (I’ll write more about it at some other point) But I unfortunately didnt get too many answers on this subject…! I had a lot of fights with them about pointless stuff, but then I realize that even if they have certain crazy opinions (they started a fight with me once because of the material of clothing I was wearing…!?) it’s better not to argue and either ignore them and move on my path, or to just go with it. This way of thinking has actually helped with a lot of interactions with other people, they say defense is the first act of war, and it’s rarely worth it to fight about anything, just do you or don’t.

Thank you to StarvingWolf for your amazing story! Your story was exactly what I was looking for! Funny how you should bring up bark baskets, I actually made my first one awhile ago and I’d been meaning to for quite some time!! It’s funny how our first conceptions of something can turn around on their heads! Civilization definitely thrives on resisting new ideas, except for when they go along with its motives (e.g. why people will embrace new fancy technology over some extremely healthy guy living in the woods!) And it’s easier to make people resent others with a different kind of lifestyle when they aren’t living the life they want. If you were completely happy and healthy in every respect you probably wouldn’t have given a damn about that guy. The story about your wife was very interesting… I’ve noticed that the people who are best for us will walk into or stay in our lives, and it certainly seems that, even though you two were almost torn apart, circumstances turned around. It’s good that you were there for her, to guide her on this path, because that’s really the best anyone can do: you can’t make anyone rewild, same as you can’t make them take a test or do a task. They might not want to anyways, but if they do, or if things shift that person in that way, you can only guide, and it seems like you’re working on guiding her, as well as yourself, on this amazing journey!!

And Golden Pathway, I’m touched by your comment. I used to wish that I was the son of some of my mentors instead of my folks. But I’m walking my path, and i’m confident where I am now. Funny how blood isn’t always thicker than water… Anyway you did your best as a parent, it sounds like you certainly gave them their choices, even though they didn’t choose what you wish they had, you tried not to stand in your way. I’m fortunate to be part of a really amazing family of people who aren’t necessarily living the way I want, but they’re on their paths as well.

Thanks to all for the stories and words of encouragement! Nia:we Sge:no!

Thank you to all for replying to this topic, your responses have been very helpful.

[quote=“Peter Michael Bauer, post:4, topic:1700”]Scout,

My parents told me my whole life to follow my dreams, yet when those dreams became rewilding, they wouldn’t get behind them. So I just ran away for a year and a half.[/quote]

Yeah, my parents are the exact same way. “You can do anything you want– Advanced Diploma or Honors Diploma, Harvard or Cornell, Doctor or lawyer or rich environmental-y scientist…” It’s funny at first but then all the humor rushes out as they get angry at me for making it clear to them that I need to follow my vision, and that my vision doesn’t entail anything they think I “need.”

Dude, thanks again for your response. Just curious, how do you differentiate between a job and a career? From what I understand a job is sometimes more temporary (e.g, working as a waiter(ess) for awhile), while a career is something you invest your time in (e.g. opening up a restaurant), but correct me if Im wrong.
Also, I know that my exact plans for what I want to do for my life could change, but I’ve learned too much about rewilding, primitive skills, and the state of the world to turn back from it. For awhile I’ve had a deep feeling that my path lies with the skills and with the Earth and that hasn’t changed in 3-4 years (not exactly the longest time for most of you others, but usually young people’s interests change on a dime). My intuition and my vision definitely want to keep myself connected to rewilding/Nature as much as possible.
I agree that we never stop learning… we always learn something new to keep us on our best path. Unless we don’t interpret correctly what we need, in which case it takes something more and more drastic to wake up. And THEN we die. :slight_smile:

[quote=“Willem, post:6, topic:1700”]The thing is, the universe is way too complex to control. You have no control in this, whatever decision you make. But there are outgoing waves you can catch. This is what your intuition, what Peter talks about, will help you with. In the meanwhile, your parents and family are your treasure. Do what you can to make sure they know you love and care bout them, because as a rewilder, you’re probably going to put them through hell. Haha. But not so funny to your parents. There is magic there though, some of the oldest magic, in family, just like the Lakota say “All my relations”. Super important.

As you jump stories, from one where humans rule the earth, to the other one where humans are the children of the earth, your intuition is going to be the smartest guide around. It’s a skill to listen to it, and the best time to start practicing is right now.[/quote]

Willem, your post was extremely deep and meaningful.
If there was a way to control the universe, I have a feeling most of us would be dead from some powerful person controlling it for the worse…
I currently have a mixed relationship with my parents, mostly because of their opposition to my path. Because I’m human, there are times where I simply am too wrapped up in how they stand in my way for my interests, and don’t give a crap about letting them know I care about them. I’m working to put my ego aside…

Something that I would like to ask all of you is this: how can I make my interests/passions clearer to my parents without damaging my relationship with them? I’m aware that this is a pretty tricky question, but I always hit a wall whenever I try making my path clear to them, and I havent really been succeeding with dealing with them. I know my path for now, but I wish that they would stop believing that my fate is in their hands.

One thing I’ve been trying to deal with recently is the fact that they want me to take every single Regents test when my school doesn’t require even half of them. (I know, the struggle) They keep telling me that I have no choice in this matter and that school is my first priority (and not my well-being). I could simply give in and take the damn tests, but knowing them, I have a feeling that giving in to that would only cause more strife and that they would only continue to push me on where they want me to be. Also, in order to take them, I’d have to sacrifice my most valuable tool: time to rewild, which I already don’t have a lot of. I know that this isn’t much of a struggle at all, and that many other students have worse parents, but I’m sick of the guilt they lump on me and I’m sick of constantly fighting with them about EVERYTHING and I’m sick of civilization making me/everyone around me depressed and making my closest friends have harder lives and I’m sick of the pain that the entire world suffers every day. I’m trying to do what I can about it without hurting me/my relationship with my folks, but there’s a point when the dam needs to be blown up to stop the river ecosystem from dying.

Thanks again to all for the help! Thank you to all those who are walking their paths for helping me get started on mine!

“Before we start walking on the path, we need to break down the wall that blocks it.” -Me