The 30 List: Relationship with Your Parents

3. Describe your relationship with your parents.

June 2009, UCD Graduation

At the young age of 21, two crazy kids in love became parents. I’m sure some (or many) doubted them, scorned them, dropped snide comments on them… But somehow, they fought their way through parenthood. Through skeptical cynics, working endless hours to make ends meet, and eating three-day-old leftovers from the restaurant because you-spent-your-paycheck-on-baby-food, and they ended up here.  Here is twenty five happy years of marriage. Here is having two healthy, happy children. Here is  enjoying steak dinners, weekends in Vegas, and owning a sweet house in Orange County.

Maybe it’s because of their early experience with parenthood, maybe it’s just because that’s just the kind of people they are, but my parents are pushers. They’ve always pushed me to be better, to try harder, to always do my best. And ontop of all that, they support me unconditionally.

Motorcycle license? YES! Four years at a UC school? OK! Study abroad in Rome? Do it, we’ll visit! Sky diving? Sounds great, I’ll go with you! Move across the world for a year? Awesome, good luck!

There are things that they’ve done that I haven’t always understood (and likewise, I’m sure). Things that seemed unfair and made me shake my fists up at the sky and cry “Why God?” But after all is said and done, it seems to always make me a stronger person. One of things I am most proud of is my independence. And if it weren’t for my parents- both in the way they have raised me, the values they have instilled in me, and the choices they’ve made, I’d be a sniveling, whining, OC girl, too scared to leave the nest for college. Instead, I have six stamps in my passport, a car named Taylor in which I make my own payments on and pay my own insurance, and an apartment in JAPAN. 

March 2012, before hopping on a plane for Japan

 My relationship with my parents? It can be complicated, and it’s not perfect, but it’s ours (cue the Taylor Swift song). They love and support me unconditionally, and for that, I am the luckiest daughter in the world.