School has made me insanely frustrated with my parents
This is kind of just a long rant because I am so frustrated with my parents in general right now. I also need advice but you don’t really have to read past the 2nd paragraph for what I need advice for. You can just read the first 2 paragraphs after this then skip to the bottom.
I just finished my sophomore year of college and it was the worst academic year of my life. I failed 2 classes and withdrew from 1 and one of the classes I failed was a pre-requisite that is only offered in the fall which put me back an entire year for graduation. I came back home this summer and when my parents saw I failed another class then hid my laptop from me so I can’t do anything productive at all. They want me to talk to talk to them about why I failed and withdrew from a class this semester and “apologize for my wicked behavior” but I know that they won’t understand because it wasn’t a physical issue it was more of a mental one. I’m not diagnosed with anything which makes it harder for me to really explain to them what went wrong this year and tbh I can’t fully explain it either because I have no idea why my mental state was so poor and why I was suffering from extreme executive dysfunction. I think there’s a chance that I have ADHD because my older brother has ADHD and I know that in a lot of cases siblings will have ADHD if at least one of them has it. I also know that ADHD in girls is very undiagnosed because it presents differently.
They’re talking about keeping me home because I’m “such a bad investment” when it comes to my education. My dad pays my tuition and I am very grateful for that because I won’t be in such massive debt when I finish school but it always annoys me how they hold this over my head but there is no real support if I struggle and then they get mad that I’m not asking them for help. If I were to ask my dad to help me in math or chemistry or something like that he is so insanely impatient that by the end I regret asking him for help at all. There’s no guidance in his “help,” just yelling, insults, and belittlement for not already knowing and understanding what he thinks I should know and understand. My dad is a petroleum engineer so he feels like everything I ask for help with I should already know/not need help with because he knows these things already and remembers them from when he first learned them decades ago.
And again as grateful as I am that I am not paying my own tuition I hate that it’s something being held over my head. They say “other kids had to work in high school and take out their own loans to pay for school” but that was never a choice they gave me or my brothers. When I asked them if I could get a job in high school they said no because I shouldn’t just focus on school and that working would be a distraction. I remember when my dad made my older brother get a job the summer before it was either his junior or senior year of high school and then my parents made him quit before the school year started because they didn’t want him to work. And I hate when they bring up about how expensive my tuition is because I wanted to apply to public in-state universities so that way tuition would be cheaper, but again it was “don’t worry about that because you’re not paying” but now that I’m going to a far away out-of-state private university you want to complain about high tuition and travel costs? I just feel like considering they didn’t plan for any other possible way for college to be paid for and didn’t allow me to apply to public in-state schools they shouldn’t act like paying my tuition is some big favor and that I shouldn’t be grateful they let me go to the school I go to. I honestly never know how to explain this part to people because I feel like this specific issue makes me sound spoiled and ungrateful.nI feel like my parents view the entire parent-child relationship as something transactional. They do something for me, I do something for them. It’s not them doing things just because they love their children.
African parents are so hard to talk to about this stuff because they never understand. They believe that since you were raised in the U.S. or whatever western country they moved to that you have no struggles in life since they provided you with food, water, shelter, clothes, and an education. It’s why they always keep comparing us to their friend’s children who were born and raised in their home country. My parents always tell me “___ is from Nigeria and doing better than you!” as if me and this other child are living the exact same life. My mom’s cousin’s son goes to my school and he’s in my year but he’s a mechatronics engineering technology major and I am a chemical engineering major. My mom likes to talk about how he made the Dean’s List and why can’t I do that but I looked at his curriculum and a good amount of the classes he takes are just the easier version of what I take. For example I’m required to take University Physics I and II, he takes College Physics I and II, I have to take Calculus I and II, he takes Calculus A and B. If I was taking Calculus A and B as a chemE major at my school that would mean that I failed the math placement exam I had to take the summer before my freshman year. They compare me with this boy because we’re in the same year at the same school but they don’t acknowledge that we are taking completely different classes. I remember when I was a junior in high school and I took the SAT and got a 1230 the compared me to another one of their friend’s daughter from Nigeria who got a higher score than me. They asked “is she better than you?” and got mad when I said yes. What other possible outcome could you think would happen in this situation? Then they’ll start to say I have low self confidence or something as if they’re not the reason for that.
I also wouldn’t even say that I have low self confidence or anything at all. When I’m at school I’m very social and confident in myself. The real issue is that my parents don’t really know me at all they just think they do. To this day they still believe that I don’t even really have friends because when I was in high school I wasn’t going out with people all the time (as if they’d even let me because the few time I asked they always said no!) or inviting people over to the house (what would even do just sit there? My house was boring). If you were to ask my friends to describe me they’d say things like “she’s social, funny, great to hang out with, etc” but if you ask my parents I’m quiet, shy, keep to myself, and don’t have friends.
I hate that when we argue about anything it’s always what they say goes. I hate that when I try to defend myself in anyway I’m told to shut up or that what I’m saying is irrelevant. I hate those stupid rhetorical but also not rhetorical questions African parents ask when they’re yelling at you. They’ll ask a question and when you try to answer it’s shut up. But then they’ll ask another one and ask why you’re just staring at them and ask you to answer. Do you want me to speak or not? I’m not an X-man, I can’t read minds!
I think they way they’ve been treating me all year for failing just the one class plus they way they’ve treated me so far this summer ever since they saw the results of my spring semester is the straw that broke the camels back for real. The past few days made me realize that I can’t wait for the day I move out of the house. At my school it’s mandatory for me to do a co-op fall of my third year but I’m allowed to start in the summer and once I retake those classes I need to this upcoming school year, I’ll be able to do a 2027 summer/fall co-op which would mean not going home and I genuinely can’t wait. It would mean that from that point on I only have to see my parents during winter break since I’ll most likely be working all those summers and it’ll be easier for me to move out once I graduate because most of the co-ops lead to full time employment. I was talking to a friend the other day I told her that I used to not understand why people were so desperate to move out of their parents house as they got older but I understand it now.
I think that my parents and many other African parents just don’t understand that everyone has a different situation and different struggles in life. And I’m sick and tired of trying to get them to understand.
TLDR; I’m insanely frustrated with my Nigerian parents and can’t wait to be financially independent and move out of the house.
I have about 3ish hours until my dad comes back from work so if anyone has any idea of what I can say to them to make the conversation of why I failed my classes and why I should be allowed to go back to school in the fall easier that’d be great