Whenever we said the blessings before a meal, my Zayde, or grandpa, made everyone hold hands around the table and shout, “We give thanks to God for FAMILY!” And on “family”, he raised his hands and shook them, a big sweaty smile on his face.
My Zayde clasped a deep, fruity passion for family, a passion that seeped down the roots of the family tree, then dried up at the ends. As unruly children, my sister, Frances, and I didn’t want to listen or behave; we wanted a world that revolved around our needs, composed of our rules and no limits.
“What do you mean my grades aren’t good enough?” Frances would demand. “I have straight As in 6 AP classes!”
“Why do I have to come home before 11 PM? All my friends stay out until 2!” I would yell, hoping to guilt my parents.
“Why can’t we eat junk food?”
“Why do we have to listen to you read the newspaper at breakfast?”
“What’s wrong with my boyfriend? I really like him, isn’t that enough?”
“Help, Sara bit me!”
We constantly bantered, giving “family” a negative context. While my friends giggled during sleepovers my parents forbade me from attending, I stayed home for forced Saturday night “study time”. I read and read, imagining a world of freedom, where nobody cared what time I came home, what I ate, how often I read the newspaper, and whom I dated.
“When you go to college,” my parents told me, “nobody will bother you. But while you live under this roof, you follow our rules.”
Boy, I couldn’t wait to go to college.
College presented a shocking amount of freedom. I could stay out until 6 AM, sleep wherever I wanted, design my own homework schedule, go to parties on Mondays, and devour pizza at Broward Dining. Nobody told me what to do, checked up on my habits, bothered me, or pushed me around. I was the boss of my own life, my own choices.
But as I went through college, absorbed in extracurriculars, engineering, and then the business school online classes (with frequent Study Edge cramming), I found myself gradually returning to the structure my parents created for me. I downloaded news apps to my phone. I spent some Saturday nights doing homework. I hung out with and dated people my parents would generally approve of. By forcing so many rules into my childhood, my family had wormed its way into my personal life, 18 years of stringent directions molding me at 21 into a successful student.
It was during college, away from my family, that I realized how much I appreciated them. They taught me the discipline to study and learn. They gave me the aggressive tactics to handle those who doubted me. They instilled my overjudgemental viewpoints that kept me from danger. Not to mention, they were only a phone call away. And believe me, my parents never forgot to ask how the studying was going.
I am no longer ashamed of my roots, my overprotective parents, my hippo-collecting sister, my relatives stretched across 3 countries (USA, the Netherlands, Israel) with their odd habits and cultures. I am proud, but more than proud, I am thankful, thankful that I had some guidelines during my college years and beyond.
I advise all of you reading this to thank those who raised you—whether it was a parent, grandparent, or sibling. Because whether or not you realize it, you picked up beneficial habits and learned valuable lessons from them that will guide you through the rest of your life.
