Ladies first: Parents just don't understand!

Written by: Rachel Ruiz

Edited by: Joshua Hicks

Growing up and even to this day a saying has and continues to be said amongst the women of my family. “Put your big girl panties on and deal with it” they’d say. When it came down to an “unfair” situation or having to do something I simply didn’t want to do, I would hear this saying across most contexts primarily from my mother and grandmother. To me, this saying presented itself with a very negative connotation as it was a means of their having power and control over me in situations where I should’ve had an opinion and a voice. When I told my grandmother that I thought I would benefit from taking a gap year between high school and college and told her that I wasn’t ready to go to University right away and might benefit from a community college program prior to University, the age-old saying proceeded to be said, “put your big girl panties on and deal with it. You’re going to an out of state University right after high school!”

At the young age of 17, I was graduating high school and would be going into college just a couple of months later as it was the expectation and standards of my parents and grandparents. It was bitter-sweet because I knew that I wasn’t ready for the college experience I had been hearing about all of my years growing up (academically and responsibly speaking), but I was excited about all of the community and new relationships that I would get to experience; not to mention the fact that I would be living 1,000 miles away from my home and family and would finally, feel a sense of independence! This was majorly important to me as most of my life had been dictated by my parents and grandparents and it was finally time for me to make my very own choices. Boy, was I in for some real shit! Of course, I enjoyed all of the new relationships/people, the many and varying events that took place at the university, living on campus and things of that nature, but what I wasn’t prepared for was balancing all of that with the insane amount of work that university’s give their students and the tiring ideals that are constantly drilled into students’ focus and geared toward impacting their future career.

Everyone around me always told me I’d do well in performing arts and I had already been very active in performing in musicals and being in dance shows all throughout high school, so I decided to go into theatre. Following that, I took a semester off as I was overwhelmed with thoughts of not knowing what I was going to do with my education as a springboard to my career and not wanting to waste money at a a private university that was charging an arm and a leg for me to be doing something that I wasn’t sure I was even going to be using in my future. I also felt a sense of defeat that I wasn’t able to fulfill the expectations of my family. Along with that, I realized that it was a good idea to start off in a community college before ever trying to declare a major and go to school at a 4-year University in the first place.

At this point, I decided to take my education into my own hands, and I became the primary decision maker as far as what was best for me in regard to my collegiate success. After my much-needed break, I decided to go to a community college nearby and did prerequisite classes for 2 semesters and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my career. Those semesters were probably the scariest and most challenging of all throughout my whole college experience as I was finally taking a hold of the reins on my life and gaining the independence necessary to find out who and what I wanted to be.

I want to share some back story as it pertains to what I decided to do with my future career. I have a brother who is about 14 months older than me who has ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Since we were kids, we have been inseparable, and I have always been his own kind of personal shadow that did any and everything with him to make sure he would be included as well as just because I wanted him there. Throughout our lives, I have always felt a need and calling to help him and others like him, but I never really saw it as a career goal. I saw it as more of a passion and something that I wanted to do regardless of whether or not there was a paycheck involved.

Fast forward to one day during my second semester at the community college. I got called up with an opportunity to do some work in the special needs community to be a part of a passion project, but the catch was that it was back home in Miami. So, I made the 1000-mile drive back home to finish my associates at the infamous Miami Dade and to start working on the passion project. Once I finished my associate’s I decided to follow my heart and declare a major in Exceptional Student Education at FIU last Fall and plan to have my Bachelor’s by either next Summer or Fall and still working on the passion project!

It was a crazy journey to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but it was all worth it! Once family saw my success through going about my education the the way I wanted to, they were completely on board with my independent and responsible choices to do just that.

 I wish my family would have seen my post-secondary education as more of a necessity and tool to success for my life in the first place rather than as an accessory to make myself and themselves look better (of course that wasn’t the only reason they wanted me in post-secondary education but it was definitely one of them). I wish they would’ve been more accepting of the “community college into a four-year University” approach back then, but I know I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t gone through all of the crazy trials and tribulations that I wasn’t prepared for throughout my whole college experience. So, with that being said, if you get opportunities to attend college (even if it’s at the hands of traditional old-folk who see college as a societal necessity and the only means to acquire real work), take them if you can! Know that you aren’t going to be fully prepared and that’s okay. Know that you will know that you’re doing what you should be when you can reflect on the happiness that results from it. Know that you don’t have to know what you want to do after you graduate high school because I surely didn’t at the time, but I certainly do today! College was and still is one of the absolute most ultimate learning experiences that I’ve had in attempting to gain responsibility, learn how to live in this world, and grow as an individual human being. Remember to always stand firm in your beliefs, do what makes you the happiest, aim to be independent and responsible, and never let society or anyone else ever dictate what you should do with your life. To my women readers, always have your head up and remember ladies first…