I found myself getting unnecessarily irate with my mom last night after she said the follow:
"I can't read novels, I can't read anything I can't learn something from."
This is a paraphrased version of what she said, but essentially identical to her statement (allowing for discrepancies between "can" and "don't like to"[because I can not remember which she said, the former or the latter], and for any and all emphasis created by punctuation.)
I wanted to ask her why, if it was such an apparent waste of time, did she pay so much money to have the state of Virginia teach me things from which no real knowledge can be derived. Instead, I grumbled and groused about how she wasn't trying hard enough and if she put forth the effort she could learn a great deal. That what she should have said was she "chose not to learn anything from novels because she refused to see the value inherent in them and how they are indicative of multitudinous cultures/ideas converging upon, and reacting to, one another. I mumbled something about how I had learned a great deal about a good number of things, and I was sorry she saw no value in that.
I don't know what to make of this exchange. Was it an off-hand remark? Does she really see no value in what I want to do with pretty much the rest of my life? I'm not joining the circus or running off to become a yogi (both valid life choice but would be inevitably frowned upon by mom). I want to get my doctorate. Every time I bring it up she doesn't support it, just complains that it costs to much and she does not want to see me go into debt. It is an understandable concern but I'm not going to Harvard and I'd only take out loans to pay for class, not my entire life. I only need a little help at the start of each semester so I can pay as I go.
She knows how much I miss school and how much I want to be back in classes. I don't expect her to get excited if I get in to grad school. Actually, I expect that the first thing she'll say will be something along the lines of "well, now how are you going to pay for it?"
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2 comments:
That's an odd sentiment, considering that she has a masters herself. Has she done anything with her degree since getting it? Or did she take a big financial hit to pay for it? It's kind of weird that your mom, an educator, wouldn't be gung-ho about her kids educating themselves.
Also, I learned all the best curse words from novels before I ever saw them on tv.
No, she uses it everyday. She needed it to get certified to teach ESOL.
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