I got so offended when my grandmother was all “Oh Tiger, why do you want to be a lawyer for POOR PEOPLE? You’ll never make any money. Why don’t you become a pharmacist or an optometrist (like other relatives) instead?”
Yeah okay, because all of that education is just interchangeable. I can just go to the quick-e-mart and say “Hello, I want to make a lot of money. I know I’ve never taken a science class in my life and I have a liberal arts degree, but can I be a pharmacist for a few weeks? You know, try to pay off my student loans before I do something I really like.”
The problem with my family is that besides my mom, everybody is doing something they hate for the money. My mom gets paid well now and owns her own business, but for YEARS everyone always asked why she worked for the VA, why she worked for the tribe, etc, when she had the credentials to work at nicer facilities. She hated the people who could afford those facilities! Well, she didn’t hate them, she just couldn’t see herself spending a life in service to people who had everything handed to them from a young age.
Now it’s just upsetting to me. Before I really thought and listened to my grandmother, who is pretty old and probably just doesn’t want me to be “poor” my entire life (perish the thought) I just let loose with a barrage of profanity directed towards my mother and why my mother felt compelled to let everyone know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Now things are tense. I’m really just upset because I got so much shit for investigating becoming a parole officer, which really interested me, in the middle of my law school applications. Everyone got all angry and worried that I’d become some sort of “lowly” public officer. They don’t realize that I’d make pretty much exactly the same as I will as a public defense lawyer for juveniles. I don’t give a shit what they say about upward mobility. I’m just getting angry.
