Today was, quite ironically, both for me.
I've been looking for a summer internship for quite some time. While my parents have been largely supportive of my search, my mother has never failed to point out the unlikelihood of a freshman getting an internship and the 'benefits' of coming home and working for the summer...every single time I brought the subject up.
Today, I was offered a wonderful Students for Life internship in New York City, pending parental approval. When the recruiter asked if my parents would approve, I told him that my father would be skeptical but eventually come around, while my mother would likely be a challenge.
I take great pride in knowing my parents so well.
My father's opposition was rooted in the fact that the house I'll be staying in is in the Bronx. I think I can handle myself for two reasons: first, I will be staying with at least 10-15 people at any given time; and second, I have taken Tae Kwon Do. Knife evasion techniques always came easily to me. In all seriousness, though, I don't think the program directors would put us in immediate danger of losing our lives.
My mother, on the other hand, came up with (what she believes to be) a far more convincing argument. Basically, she started off by reminding me that the financial situation in America is terrible at the present. Then she went over my bank account status, reminding me at least three times that my current savings will only cover through sophomore year. She also added in the fact that I hope to study abroad in spring of 2010, and my current finances don't take that into account. Finally, she wrapped it up with the fact that I could come home and work as a clerk at a local grocery store with a side job of waitressing and earn more money than the stipend I would get from the internship program.
Hm. Help save the lives of countless innocent children in danger of horrific deaths...or work at home stockpiling cash.
Somehow, there doesn't seem to be much of a choice.
My dear mother, God bless her, basically refused (though not in so many words) to support my efforts to take this internship. If I go through with this, I will likely hear about my "wasted summer" during every telephone conversation and every family gathering for years to come.
I guess this is what modern martyrdom looks like.
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man 'against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daugher-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be those of his household.'
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daugher more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
~Matthew 10:34-39 NAB
God bless,
PHC
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