are we to follow our parents’ expectations?
August 15, 2006sure, if it makes YOU happy as well.
the difficulty of parent-daughter or son relationships is the notion that one must adhere to the expectations of the parent or set of parents. emotions clash over whether the son should “follow his dream” of becoming a painter or take up accounting like his father. we all have versions of this debate going into our hearts and minds, and it either drives us to depression or mediocrity. one gets depressed over not fulfilling their dreams and having “settled” for what their parents want for them, which leads to the mediocre quality of their work and life, a feeling that one hasn’t done their best, or have reached their potential.
i live and work with my parents for close to two years now. i graduated hotel and restaurant management and the first job i took upon graduating was in a large call center. the college course was entirely my choice, and with my affinity with food and cooking then, i wanted to go to cooking school, which my mother agreed to. concerns rose up when my mother discovered that i would be learning cooking with older people, and the fact that i won’t be able to experience a “normal” college life. thus, i enrolled in the best school for hotel and restaurant management at my time. i wasn’t a great student, my grades weren’t that high, but i had higher grades in the subjects that i was really interested in, which ironically were not major subjects related to my course. imagine getting A’s in women’s studies and psychology. oh yeah, i think i got an A also in tourism. i never lost my affinity for cooking since i usually become one of the chefs in our functions and parties, and it was also in college that i have discovered that i loved to bake more than to cook, having assembled our first cake laden with fondant icing, marzipan flowers, and other cake accessories that are too good to eat. becoming an officer in a college organization became my distraction (as my mother puts it) to getting the grades she would have liked and eventually caused my delay in graduating. at the time, i thought the organization would teach me management skills in which i couldn’t learn in the classroom, and in hindsight, i was right. though i felt it was a moment in my life that i felt i have digressed and strayed away from doing what i had loved to do, i had learned a lot from my years as one of the officers in that organization. it has also served its purpose too in where i am now, where i am managing and leading more, than doing and following orders more.
my first love had always been to write, i did a lot of writing when i was a teenager and wanted to become a journalist or a novelist, though such careers don’t bring home much money unless you’re one of those shady journalists. my second love was food and creating food, either baking or cooking, but where am i now?
i’m doing neither. perhaps because of serendipity and the fact that i have been without a job for a year, i ended upbeing with my parents, learning the ropes going from one department to another, learning the systems, analyzing the shortcomings in their systems and guiding our people to do things the right way. it is really challenging and fulfilling to be working in the family business, you get to mee the best kind of people and also the worst kind of people. there are times that you are so filled with hope and promise on what is to come and on the growth and development of the company, and there are also times in which you think that hope is all gone and that pinoys are all hopeless because of many reasons.
am i happy? sometimes, but i am not going to look for something that makes me 100% happy, because i’ve realized that there is no such thing. as for what will happen in the future of our business, i will just try to learn whatever i need to learn, change whatever i need to change, and grow and grow and grow while i have the opportunity to. being the daughter of the owner has its perks, you never get fired, you can take your time to know the business and you can make changes to the systems and make it better. the only downside i could think of is that you don’t own your time especially when you are living with your family, but that’s just a personal problem than the norm.
i have indeed followed my parents’ footsteps, but i am also making my own mark.
