My niece just finished her GCE 'O' levels examinations and during this holiday, she starts work at the airport. Her mum complains about how late she gets home. Knocking off at 11.30pm and reaching home at 12.15am. The daughter says that her mum is paranoid. The mum says it's so dangerous for a young girl to be home so late alone and they are not depending on her to bring home the dough. Mum kept nagging on about her nonchalant attitude towards safety.
I remembered my teenage years. Those days were when there's identity crisis and curfews to deal with.. and my cinderella cut off time? unrealistic 11.30pm - then I thought. I needed to work to feed myself then so I really felt that my parents were unreasonable. There were events I had to attend and they always end late. I had only teenage sense (which is equivalent to no-sense) at that time and was raving mad at my parents.
I thank God that I had a good friend who is slightly older and wise. He told me to that trust from my parents needed to be earned.
Feeling upset that he didn't understand that I was earning my keeps and that gave me the (false) rights to take control of my time. However, as his wise words sunk into my thick head, it made perfect sense. I somewhat managed to convince my parents with the details of my work and things I am doing out there. They started to give me more control of my own time and began to be less intrusive.
These set of words goes a long way. At work, I started to appreciate how I handled my parents and applied to my bosses, job interviews, sales calls....
Coming back to my niece, I said the same thing to her. She appeared irritated too but well, let's hope these wise words passes on.
