I suppose I have always been independent on some level. As a child, my parents told me I always wanted to do things on my own. If someone tried to help I would stop them and say, “I can do it myself”. However, throughout my adolescence, I wanted my parents to do certain things for me. I saw how all of my friends’ parents made their lunch and cooked their breakfast for them every morning (which my parents would still do, but they also made me do it myself). They were not expected to do chores. Their parents would wake them up every morning and remind them about their homework everyday when they came back from school. Now, I am not saying there is anything wrong with this, in fact, I think it’s essential to do many of these things during certain time periods in a child’s life.

However, this is the problem: the pattern is continuing during high school and early adulthood. Many of my upperclassmen high schoolers’ parents are involved in nearly every aspect of their life, while my parents know what classes I’m taking and that is about it. They don’t hound me about my grades, and I believe if they did, they would be taking my intrinsic motivation away. They also let me solve problems at school on my own. If there is a conflict with a teacher, I simply go and talk with them about it. I especially glad that my parents allowed me to be myself. They never forced me to be involved in a certain extracurricular activity, nor put down one that I was interested in. They allowed me to be curious about the world and learn what I was best at by trial and error.

I want to be clear that I am no phycologist and I have never experienced being a parent. However, the amount of millennials I see day to day that don’t know how to do anything for themselves is concerning. If their parents are always communicating and doing every little thing for them, how are they going to make it in the real world? In college and in the workplace there is going to be confrontation that can not be resolved by one’s parent, and there are going to be deadlines that have to be remembered without a constant reminder. If my parents would not have raised me to think and do for myself, I would not be the same today. I appreciate that my parents made me be independent in times I thought I needed them. This has molded me into a stronger, well rounded individual who is ready to face college head on.