-Roommate and I went to nursing school together. The city that the university is in is a while away from both of our hometowns.
-Her parents make her move back home while I stay here in the uni city.
-Job market for nurses sucks in her hometown. She's gotten rejected from the hospitals there, but has an interview for a hospital in the unit city, where I'm at.
-She lets her parents know of the interview, but they don't want her leaving home. Her mom instead says she'll find something in due time and that she needs to wait, and dad says she's cutting her experience of living at home too short.
-She knows what she wants, but she's afraid of hurting her parents.
How would you handle this situation? The longer she remains jobless, the more horrible she'll look when she continues to apply but her parents are ignorant. The situation just frustrates me. Her boyfriend and I have even offered to drive all the way to pick her up for the interview.
She's an adult? There is no "parents won't let me" excuse. If she wants to leave "home" , then she needs to grow up and do so and stop letting her parents decide everything for her. Do her parents control who she dates, when her curfew is, who her friends can be? I sure hope not or its even worse than I thought.
As a friend, you cant really say all that though.
Actually, a real friend would say all that. Friends shouldn't just be people who tell you what you want to hear all the time, but people you can count on to tell you the truth. Even when you don't want to hear it. Especially when you don't want to hear it.
Maybe she needs to calculate what a potential salary would be if she were accepted for a job. Present the info to parents. And since it's only an interview she has no guaranteed offer...
$$$ usually talks esp if there are lingering school loans to pay off.
Her parents don't care about the money. They're willing to pay for everything until she finds a job where they live.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Thanks, everyone. I plan on sending this to her. Her mom is Mexican and her dad is American. Her mom also isn't that big of a fan of her boyfriend here, which is another reason why she's so against letting my roommate go.
Is there any way she could get a decision right on the spot? I am a float tech right now (will be an RN on another unit soon) and I'm going to see if I can get myself assigned to the unit the interview is on and try to pull some strings. I'd appreciate other thoughts. Thanks!
How in the world do you think you'll have enough "pull" to pull any strings? And your friend needs to make up her own mind what she wants to do. It's not you call.
I don't understand people. I stopped asking for my parents' permission, blessing, whatever you want to call it when I was like 12. If I wanted to do something, I did it. When I was 12 it was stuff like going to the movies or the mall with friends. In high school, it was joining clubs, sports or going out to concerts, parties, etc. At 18, it was choosing college over having brain surgery. Your friend is an adult. It is long past time she learn to stand on her own two feet.
I remember when I was a senior in college, I thought about applying for jobs far away because I only wanted to work pediatrics and wasn't sure if I could get a job in the city I went to school in. When I said something about this at Christmas, one of my Mom's cousins said "you would LET her move to NYC or Chicago or Washington or Philadelphia or Phoenix?" I was 23. No one needed to "let" me do anything.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I read the OP and for the life of me do not understand what the issue or problem is? Sure the parents have expressed their wishes but so what? If the new grad in question under 18? Are the parents physically holding her against her will? If the answer to these two is no then what could possibly be the issue?
Even at the age of 18, I did what I needed to do; I was 18, and had entered the working world at 16; all my educational decisions were my own.
Now that this friend has made a path in the world, she needs to make the decisions; it doesn't seem like a cultural issue but more of an "overbearing" control issue that does occur in some families-not always healthy, but again, the friend has a right to break free and STOP letting her parents know what she is doing-I did that WAYY before the age of 18 when I became cognizant that there was NO support of what I needed to do-I had to do things all by myself in order to put my stake into this world; didn't always get it right, but I wouldn't trade the experiences-and my successes-for nothing.
If your friend is 18, she is legally an adult, at least in the US. She is free to make her own decisions. At the same time, if she is still living with the parents, even as an adult, it's not surprising that Mom and Dad are going to want to have a say in what she does.
And it's up to your friend to decide how much--if any--that parental say is. This means she may have to make some hard choices, such as asserting herself to them or moving out, if she wants to minimize the influence her parents have on her decisions.
duskyjewel
1,335 Posts
Actually, a real friend would say all that. Friends shouldn't just be people who tell you what you want to hear all the time, but people you can count on to tell you the truth. Even when you don't want to hear it. Especially when you don't want to hear it.