“I don’t believe that there is one question that they have no right asking or that I wish they stopped asking me specifically. Sometimes there are tedious questions like, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ and ‘What are your friends doing over break?’ but these don’t really upset me. Although repetitive and sometimes awkward, I’ve never felt that there is a question that a parent has no right asking. Sometimes, there are questions that I don’t feel comfortable answering. But often, my parents and I try to answer each other the best we can in order to build up trust and fluidity in our relationship as I grow older into the weirder and more complicated years of my life.”
— Frederick, freshman
“Calm down. If there’s one thing I wish my parents would stop telling me it’s to take a deep breath and calm down. There’s offers to go to yoga or suggestions about daily guided meditations on YouTube. Calm down, my mother keeps telling me.
“It’s 11:30 pm and I am halfway through my 20-page bio packet right after finishing 10 pages of reading about the Middle East for my global studies class. I’m moving at a slow but steady pace when I come across a bunch of terms and concepts I’ve never heard of before, meaning the next half-hour will be spent Googling pieces of what I’m supposed to be learning. I let out a groan of tired frustration and within seconds my mother swings open the door to my room and says, ‘Why don’t you take a deep breath and calm down?’ My homework time just increased past midnight so I don’t have time for stretching or deep breathing. Try to calm down. It drives me crazy.
“A lot of parents worry about stress in their kids but stress is part of the process. Between homework, extracurricular activities and friends, it all gets pretty hectic and when you have a lot of work to do ‘relaxing’ isn’t always part of the picture. A parent throwing impossible suggestions at you just adds to the stress. I think anxiety is unavoidable, but it is motivating and helps me to focus on finishing my homework and studying hard. If I actually did calm down, I might just fall asleep.
“I know my parents don’t want me to feel stressed out, but the first rule of getting someone to calm down is not telling them to calm down. It has the opposite effect, in the same way that asking someone if they’re mad can actually make them a little mad. As a busy freshman in high school, stressful evenings are how it’s going to be and I don’t think I’ll be calming down any time soon. Sometimes I feel my mother needs to calm down. I would tell her to calm down, but we all know that doesn’t work.”
— Maya, freshman
“’This college looks perfect for you… Do you like it?’, ‘Do you think your SAT scores are high enough though?’, ‘If you take that SAT course again and then take the test 500 more times your score will probably go up… right?’, ‘Did you email that college professor?’, ‘Did you text your friends’ cousins’ boyfriends’ sisters’ roommate so we can get a tour of that school?’, ‘Have you figured out a major yet?’ are all questions I get asked on an everyday basis. As a current junior in high school, my life has become a never-ending segment of ‘how to overwhelm Lexie with college and SAT score questions.’ Being a 16-year-old, I am suddenly supposed to know exactly what I want to do when I’m older. Yes, I take part in tons of high school extracurriculars and I enjoy every minute of it, but how am I supposed to figure out if it could be a career for me? I was never that kid who knew she wanted to be a doctor, but I don’t think my mom’s endless questions are going to bring me to a conclusion.
“My whole high school career has led up to this moment and I didn’t realize all of my hard work would leave me this confused. I realize my mom is just looking out for me and making sure success is in my future, but I want to figure it out on my own. In a perfect world, my parents would help me figure out the answers to these questions and help me understand what I’m meant to do. In all reality, I probably won’t be able to answer these questions for a while.”
— Lexie, junior
“The questions that bug me the most, which my parents constantly ask, despite my clear consistent irritation, are the inquiries about the girls I have crushes on. I’ll be having a nice one-on-one conversation with one of my parents, when, out of nowhere, my mom or dad will ask, ‘So, do you like any girls?’ For some reason, they are of the opinion that if we are in the midst of a pleasant chat, I’ll be more open about the girls I like. My view is that some kids are just inherently uncomfortable talking to their parents about the girls/boys they like, while others find these conversations totally fine. There’s no reason why a parent should ever try to force these conversations, because if the kid is of the latter opinion, then they will have no problem bringing it up of their own volition; however, if a kid considers this subject off limits and awkward, there’s nothing a parent can do, other than irritate their kid. Personally, I don’t want to talk about my crushes. As a result, my mom seems to think that means we’re not as close as other parents and children might be, which is not at all the reality.”
— Eli, Sophomore
“There isn’t a specific question I wish my parents would stop asking me, but sometimes I feel like when I am discouraged or sad or angry, they absorb all of it and get really caught up in how I am feeling. Sometimes I just need space to process my thoughts, but since I am an only child, their concern, at times, can be a little overwhelming. I understand that they want me to always feel supported, but it’s nice sometimes to shut everyone out, put in headphones and crank the music up really loud.”
— Junior
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