Hi this is my first time posting so please correct me if I did anything wrong.
So I’m currently a college student living with my parents. My[f25] asian parents, especially my mom [f58], is very strict and old school. I’ll be honest, I’m not the most intelligent person but I am and have been trying my best to be the best daughter I can be. They like bragging with their friends and their friends always show off their kids school achievements, about graduating from fancy colleges. They think that doing well in school will solve everything. I’m also an art major and they were super mad when I told them that. I just dont think I’m booksmart and prefer doing art instead. They think I cant get a good job as an artist, which is probably true but I’m just so happy doing arts. They never supported me and constantly told me I’m wasting my time whenever they see my art supplies laying around the house. So I cleaned everything up and did everything in my room.
I recently got the idea of selling art online and I will need some tools and new supplies. I used the money I saved up to get what I needed and hid them in my room. I always close the door when entering and leaving so that my parents doesnt see what I’m doing. I have told my mom not to come into my room in a calmly manner. One day when I got home from school my room door was opened and I knew someone went in… I did not have a good time at the dinner table while they kept asking me “why I’m wasting so much time and money on this garbage”
I have already given up explaining to them and I need advice to keep me doing what I love peacefully. I still have school and I can’t afford to move out.
8 comments
I don’t have much good advice on this topic but I remember as a kid my mom would come into my room without knocking till the day she walked in on me and my now wife going at it…..since then she knocked till the day we moved out.
Soo….maybe try trauma lol.
Please try other methods of they’re suggested before mine
Change door knob to one that locks.
you want your independence and privacy, so go get your independence and privacy and get out of the house and deal with the consequences.
if the consequence is to take a break from your studies, then so be it.
you know your parents are like that, that you’ve tried to talk to them and it didn’t work.
I was told by my therapist today that my purpose on earth wasn’t to please my parents or be a good daughter. Please focus on your studies and try to earn money so you can get out of your house. Sometimes people are very different and don’t work well together. In that way, distance helps.
The truth is that it is their house so they can do what they please. The only way you will get privacy is to leave. There is no other way to stop her. Is there a storage place you can rent to keep your stuff in?
Hi, daughter of an Asian family as well.
First of all: you are not your parents’ expectations. You have a right to strive for happiness on your own terms, whatever that may look like.
That being said.. can I be honest? You are 25, living with your parents, with expenses subsidized by your parents, studying a college major (presumably also subsidized by your parents, feel free to correct me) that is unlikely to generate a livable income down the line. It sucks that your parents are not supportive, but they are also right to be worried about you. You’re pretty young, but you’ve been a legal adult for half a decade. Your parents aren’t going to be around to feed and house you forever.
If you’re confident in the commercial viability of your art, use the space provided by your school to create your pieces (but don’t tell anyone that you are selling them – most art departments have policies against this). Use a locker to store your supplies. I promise you’re not the first one to deal with trying to have an art career with unsupportive parents, you will find ways around this. But you have to be the one to plan for it, to put in the work, defy the naysayers, in order to achieve the life you want to live.
Sorry girl I don’t have sympathy for you. Your post reads as if you are in high school, but you live in your parents house at 25 years old. Do they pay for your school? Do they pay for your supplies?
Yes your mom shouldn’t be invading your privacy but the bigger issue is that you are a grown woman living off her parents studying something that won’t pay her expenses in the future. The struggle for artists is real and the reality is you are likely going to have to work a job or multiple jobs that are not related to art in order to do art.
I know this because I studied fine art for my bachelor’s degree. I was really good too, I graduated at the top of my year. I ended up getting a masters in something else.
If you don’t want your parents invading your privacy, you need to move out and support yourself.
Independence is taken, not given.
Tbh I’d start name dropping every time your mom starts having a go at you about art. “So you’re saying Domee Shi isn’t successful? So you’re saying Wenqing Yan isn’t successful? What about AI Weiwei? Hu Xiaoyuan? Guopei? If they can be successful, so can I.”
The trick with parents who like to brag and one up, no matter how petty it is, is that you have to give them a script to brag from, so they can spin it so they look good and save face. It sucks but that’s the biggest short cut.
“Mom, if I’m an artist, I make my own contracts and hours, you don’t have to pay for 12 years of med school and I can do my job from anywhere with an internet connection! Doctors don’t get that kind of flexibility”