I would like to preface this by saying that my parents are decent people. I give them a lot of credit for my success. I love them very much; however, the older I get the more I realize that things from my childhood weren't as peaceful and happy as I thought and that some of those things are still affecting me.

I've been thinking a lot recently about my upbringing and I think possibly I gave my parents too much for raising me in a feminist, think for yourself kind of way. My parents are old and are part of the baby boomer generation. My dad often talks about how much he hates millennials.

As a person who blurs the lines between the Millennial Generation and Generation Z, I take it less as an attack on my specific "generation" and more as an overall attack on people under 35, which I am. He thinks we're all dumb and lazy. What my parents don't realize is that young people aren't dumb or lazy at all.

I think because old people saw their parents just trying to get whatever job they could, they think having a job no matter what it is, or if you like it, should make you happy. And then they bought into the system and went along with the idea that you just had to work at the same job for fifty years, retire and die.

Suddenly young people come along and disrupt the system. You don't have to have one job for your entire life. You can jump ship as many times as you want until you find your perfect job. That's not bad, that's just doing what's best for you. Also, we think that liking our jobs or creating a career is important whereas they just go get one job. I also think getting a job was easier then since for the most part, having a degree wasn't a strict requirement for everything. People could just get jobs without experience or qualifications. That isn't my reality.

Another thing that has hurt me is the way they parented. My parents were overprotective in my mind. My parents wouldn't let me do lots of things. They told me in middle school that I couldn't go to a concert because they would worry about me. My favorite artist at the time, Lady Gaga, was performing and they knew how much I loved her. And it was only in Charlotte, which is about 35 minutes away from where I live.

I'm pretty sure I didn't go to my first concert until my junior year of high school. Even though my mom told me that she used to go to shows all the time even when she was young. And it wasn't because I didn't have the money, but because they literally wouldn't ALLOW me to.

My parents also wouldn't let me hang out with my friends, really. Up until I was nineteen my dad gave me a curfew, A CURFEW, of midnight. I didn't even leave my house very often in middle and high school because I knew that my parents would probably say no or ask for addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers of everyone I wanted to hang out with. That's not something I wanted to go through.

My mom forced me to go to church and still does. The problem with my parents is that they still think they can control my life. I think that's why so many people my age hate churches and religion. Being religious was never a choice they could make for themselves. And nobody is going to enjoy something they were forced into.

My dad essentially decided where I was going to college for me because I was "too immature to be far away from home." But the trouble with that is that my parents always get upset because I "can't do anything for myself." How do they expect me to be able to do anything for myself if they literally never let me. They are the definition of helicopter parents. "I needed to be close to home," they said. My dad calls me every weekend to ask when I'm coming home.

What my parents want is more important to them than my personal growth.

My life has never been my own. It's my parents' way of reliving their adolescence and childhood, it's taking credit for my academic accomplishments, it's constantly being portrayed as a child and it's not getting to make my own choices.

Not giving me freedom as an adolescent is going to cause me to not come home on the weekends, graduate and move as far away as possible.

I refuse to be trapped any longer.