How can I convince my mother to let me start serving/waitressing?

Question

To make an extremely long story short: I was supposed to go away to Miami for school, but that didn't work out. Before I left for school, I was a hostess in a restaurant for 2 years. Since coming back home, I've gotten a job in a department store, which I hate. The managers at the restaurant are begging me to come back and work as a waitress. I want to, and the rest of my family wants me to, but my mother doesn't want me to because she's afraid I won't go back to school. Technically I can do what I want, but since I still live home, I don't want there to be a fight or have my mother mad at me.

How can I convince her that I am not making a bad choice? She wants me to either stay at the department store or work in another store, but I will not be able to pay my bills with those jobs because I won't make enough.

Answer 1

I am assuming that you are of age to make your own decisions. Based on that assumption, then I would suggest that you sit your mother down, and calmly discuss your finances with her. Tell her that you cannot go to school and still continue to make the wages you are earning now. Tell her that you were content in your restaurant job and that the money you earned was sufficient enough to live on.

Also, invite her to test you. Tell her that you will indeed go to school, even when you are working your restaurant job. There has to be a time in this life when she trusts you to make decisions for yourself. I'm quite sure that she raised you to make responsible choices. Now is the time for that to pay off, and she needs to let you.

If she remains determined to go against this restaurant job, then you must do what you need to do to make a living. I seriously doubt that she is going to put you on the street because you are working somewhere she does not approve of. I would get the restaurant job back, and prove to her, live and in color, that you could maintain your restaurant job, and still appease her by continuing your school. Don't do this in a defiant manner, but be respectful towards her, no matter what her response or attitude towards you. I think when she sees that you're taking responsibility for your life, she will become more relaxed and back off.

Best wishes.

Answer 2

You can go to school and waitress at the same time. Waitressing is a great job for student's b/c the most profitable time to work is on the weekend when there is no school. Also, as a waitress you can work a limited amount of hours and still make tons of money. If you work in the right place, waitressing can be very lucrative. Many college kids work wait tables to pay their way through school. It also is a great experience in life.

I waitressed in college and while I loved the money, it was one of the most difficult jobs I ever had. Just doing it weekend in, weekend out; I knew I did not want to make this my career. Helped me to realize the importance of an education.

Answer 3

Could you work as a waitress and take college classes online? There is a guide that most libraries have put out by "Beare's" or something like that that lists the online colleges and their costs and such. This way you could make the money you need to live on PLUS attend college. I can understand how your mother feels - that if you are doing too well financially that you won't want to go to college. I can understand how you feel - you love your mother and want to find a place in the middle where you are both comfortable. Bless your heart for your efforts to get along with your mother! I don't see her as controlling, but as wanting the best, and because she obviously wants the best for you, I'll bet you can work this out.

Answer 4

First of all, you're a grown woman, so you don't have to ask mommy's permission to change jobs! You've got to learn to be independent - you don't want to be one of those women who's still letting mommy run your lilfe when you're 45, do you? So draw the line NOW - she may not like it but so what?

Second, there's the cold hard dollars and cents reason - you can make a lot more money serving than you can in a store.

Here's a good idea - tell your dad to tell mom that you're going back to the restaurant job - and she's just got to live with it, no matter what. That will shut her up!

Answer 5

If you do plan on going back to school then make a deal with your mom tell her you need to make more money in order to go back to school. If you are not going back to school then your mom wins. You can tell your mom that she can pay for the bills that your current job does not. Ask her if she ever had a job she hated but had to go to.