Is he overworking me?

Question

Ok i live with my grandma. she has a boyfriend hes indian. Hes always over like every night. every time he comes over he always makes me do double school work and talks to me about what i should do in life.he wants me to be successful and so do i but what if i just want to be a mom and not the owner of a multi million dollar company. hes not giving me that choice.im only twelve he wants me to think about what i want to do for a living. and frankley i have no idea. help?

Answer 1

Some cultures stress getting ahead in the world more than others. Japan and India come to mind as countries that put a lot of emphasis on sucess. Sucess almost always takes a good education, goals, and focus.

That is what he is stressing with you. He is treating you the way he was probably treated and the way that he would treat his own son or daughter. It is a compliment, not an insult, but I understand why you are stressed out about it. I would be very unhappy if he did that to me because I react very VERY poorly to that kind of "encouragement."

Everyone works in somewhat different ways, I would stress out about this treatment. When I was in school, that is exactly what I did and it really hurt my education. Actually, it hurt my attitude about everything in life. Unfortunately, that was the only technique that my parents and teachers knew.

You can try to talk to him about this, but I doubt it will help. It is worth a try. Tell him that you appreciate what he is trying to do and that you understand it is for your own good. Tell him that it is putting more pressure on you than you need to have and that it is upsetting you. He will probably think you are just wimping out, but it is worth a try.

Have you talked to your grandmother about this? If not, try it. The key point is that he is putting TOO MUCH pressure on you. If neither of those talks help, you need a school councilor or your minister, etc. to talk to him about this.

If my guess is correct, he is so driven that it will take quite a bit of discussion to get him to back off. It is how he was raised. Treat him with respect during this conversation. You need to tell him, in very plain language, that this is causing you problems, but do NOT tell him how terribly wrong he is.

He was raised to expect respect from young people. To be frank, many young people do not give enough respect to the knowledge of older people. I know that I didn't at your age.

I don't know how well he speaks, but I do know that sometimes people have problem talking to those from India. We think that because they speak good English, that we are speaking the same language. You need to know that they sometimes have problems with slang and some phrases. I saw many examples of a language barrier when working with the Indian people at my job. The ones I worked with were quite intellegent, but there were language problems.

Another thing to think about is your future. Are you so sure that you don't want this much education? My advice is to make the most of it now, while you can. It will never hurt you to have it and it might come in handy some day. Sucess is getting what YOU want for yourself, not in getting what someone else wants for you.

Many people your age set their sights way too high or way too low. When I was your age, I could not even imagine that what I now do for a living even existed. To be frank, the school councilors and all the classes and exercises that we did to try to find what we wanted to do were 100% useless.

I had decided that I wanted a particular job. As it turns out, I am not even physically able to do that job. No one thought about that aspect of it, they just thought it was okay if I wanted that. Many years later, I know realize that even if I was able to do that job, I would have absolutly hated it.

Instead of helping me to explore what was out there, they were happy that I had made a choice. That choice shaped my selection of classes for my high school years. Fortunately, they didn't hurt me, but I certainly could have taken classes that would have helped me a lot in my chosen profession.

On another note, sorry to bring this up, but you need to know this. Use proper capitalization and punctuation. It makes a statement about you when you don't. I know that you are only 12, but I have a feeling that you know better. Actually, you wrote extremely well, your education is showing :-)

P.S. I just read some other posts that were put up while I was writing this. I very strongly disagree with just ignoring him or acting uninterested.

He will intrepret that as disrespect and insulting. Trust me on this one, I have worked with people from India. He may not agree with what you say, but he will respect your being honest with him even if he totally disagrees. He may even get mad. If that happens, back off a little. If you push him too far, you will both regret it. You do not need to give in, but you do need to keep it civil.

Answer 2

Politely, but very directly, tell him that right now, you ARE focusing on school, but that for you it's also important to have a good family and all those other things you want in life for yourself. Tell him that soon enough you're going to make a choice about you career, but not now. And then if he keeps bugging you about it after that, don't listen to him.

Answer 3

Talk to your grandma about your concerns. Or act uninterested when he talks to you, and eventually he will leave you alone. Whatever you do, do not directly tell him to back off because he will be offended and your grandma will be mad.