<p>Teddy - Whose life is it … yours, or your parents?</p>
<p>My husband put himself through college, too, and by the end was pretty exhausted and in need of recharging his batteries. He had overloaded so he could graduate in 3.5 years and save $$. This was 1982-83, and there was a significant recession taking place then, too. He had a job lined up with a Fortune 100 company, and asked if he could delay his start date by a month. They were totally supportive.</p>
<p>You are a self-supporting adult who has finished a degree and landed a job in this economy. That is a Big Deal, and one which most of the parents who have responded here fervently hope for their own children. You have earned a vacation. You will appreciate it. Your employer will appreciate a refreshed and enthusiastic new employee. Agree with others that you should do this for yourself, not to p.o. your parents.</p>
<p>There is always someone else out there with a better paying job, more attractive SO, better car. This is your life. Time to start making your own choices. Assure your parents you have made arrangements for what needs to be done (i.e., medical coverage, cash for travel, storage for your stuff, etc.) but don’t feel obligated to share the details. </p>
<p>And if my kids want to take some time off after graduation, I will certainly remember from this thread to keep my mouth shut! ;)</p>
<p>You are an adult. Start acting like one. You worked your way through college. You can decide to do whatever you want to do now. Why do you think otherwise?</p>
<p>Some parents are jealous of their kids, which is sad. Maybe you’ll learn by negative example and not do this to your kids, someday, in their moments of transition from one phase to the next. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, congratulations on your accomplishments. Like others here, I hope you get someone to give you the delayed start-date at work. Just frame the request simply and positively. </p>
<p>You’ll need to arrange for health insurance to cover that time-gap. Please don’t run around uninsured. </p>
<p>Best wishes and much success (after you decompress). I will try not to write off to my 3 and say, "how come YOU didn’t have job offers waiting for you upon graduation like that kid :)</p>
<p>The late start date ideas sound really good! I’m going to see about that. Is there anything wrong with telling an employer you want to start working later? Maybe I should make concrete plans right away, so I can tell them exactly what I’ll be doing with the time.</p>
<p>Stradmom: Yes. I’m probably going to seek professional counseling if I don’t feel better, so I don’t go around hating my parents my whole life. But growing up in a third world country makes me realize my problems aren’t too terrible, and that makes me feel better.</p>
<p>EDIT: What you guys mentioned about my parents does make sense. They had the same issue of paying for college on their own. Maybe they wanted me to do better than them? I don’t know for sure.</p>
<p>Well, why don’t you check with them about the later start date first, then make some plans…just to be certain. ;)</p>
<p>OP – for whichever offers are the top ones that you’re considering, I’d call your point of contact there and ask what the anticipated start date would be. You may be surprised to know that most they may not be expecting you to graduate in May and start the following week – maybe they want to hold you off until June or July anyway, in which case you don’t have to ask for any kind of extension. If they happen to say ‘why,’ you can simply say that you’d like to take a few weeks off after graduation to move, take a short vacation and get things in order before you start working and you just wanted to be able to plan. It’s a perfectly reasonable request.</p>
<p>As for your parents, I’d give them less info. It’s hard when you love someone and want to be close and want them to be supportive but there’s no need to tell them anything if they will ‘throw it back in your face.’ So they don’t need to know that you have classmates with offers for 90k. If your new employer does grant you a July/Aug start, you don’t have to tell them that you requested it; just say that the company wants all the first year engineers starting together and that date is July --. Sometimes a relationship can be better if your family doesn’t know everything. For example, when I was a college soph I applied for a competitive finance internship at a place that was offering a few paid and few unpaid internships. I applied for both and only got the unpaid, which I took. A few weeks later, I mentioned to my parents that my boss thought I did a particular project well; the first response – well, if they think you’re so great, why didn’t they hire you for the paid internship and why did they take so long to make you an offer. Um – good support. From that point on, it became clear to me that they don’t need to know everything and it only made my life harder that they knew that others were making money and had been hired before me. Now they get minimal info on things and wonder why.</p>
<p>Another parent congratulating you on your intelligence, perseverence, work ethic and the success that has led you, in this terrible economy, to have several excellent, high paying job opportunities waiting for for. Bravo! </p>
<p>I think that if you straightforwardly let your prospective employers know that having worked your way through your engineering program, you’d like to take one or two months off to travel or recharge your batteries or visit relatives in the third world country where you grew up, your desires will be completely understood. It is not unusual for new college grads to make such a request. </p>
<p>Now it might be that some of these employers will need you right away, maybe a couple of weeks after you graduate, so think in advance about what you’ll say or do if they tell you this. But even if you need to begin work soon after you graduate, all is not lost.</p>
<p>Even while you are working, you will be able to do many things to enjoy yourself and indulge yourself in some of the areas that you’ve had to put off – assuming you have a good plan to manage your money which I’m sure, after putting yourself through college, you will! You’ll be able to save toward a particularly cool vacation, furnish your apartment in a way that makes it very comfortable and inviting to come home to, and plan fun weekends and socializing with friends. You will be able to attend sporting and cultural events you might not have had time or money for. You might work long hours, but not nearly as long as what you’ve been doing, and there were be serious financial and professional rewards for your efforts. And if friends want to go away for a long weekend or engage in some other particularly fun activity, you’ll finally be able to participate. </p>
<p>Do not let anyone, including/especially your family, suggest that you are somehow less than or not up to the standard of anyone else. Look what you’ve accomplished, and look what rewards you’ve earned at the end of your marathon of working and studying. You deserve to feel very, very proud of yourself. And if it takes a counselor to get you to the point of feeling as good as you deserve to be feeling, go for it.</p>
<p>Please cut your parents some slack. So your mom pops out with a mindless statement – like you’ve never done that? So they are eager for you to start work – could that be a function of worry based on the correct knowledge that many students stumble between earning a degree and finding a job?</p>
<p>We went over to some friends house the other night and played a board game. The lady of the house took an extra minute to study her “hand” of cards. Everyone was patient and fine – except the eye rolling 13 year old who acted like his mom was the dumbest creature in the universe and like it was as hard as climbing Everest to wait for her a moment. It was classic teen stuff. Grow past that. If your friends don’t find your parents to be horrid, then they (the parents) probably aren’t. </p>
<p>If you do take a gap please make sure your health coverage remains in place. It would be awful to have an accident and find that you are swamped in bills before you even start your career. Good luck!</p>
<p>Don’t be too afraid of a job. I bet 40hours/week will be a cakewalk after your past four years. Enjoy it!</p>
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<p>I would not even give you the time to pack your bags if you were my kid. You would limp away empty handed. And I would be short one shoe.</p>
<p>Wow!!! I admire your work ethic and the respect that you seem to have to your parents. Lots of kids would have written off their stressful inteference a long time ago. It’s time to live your life as YOU see fit. Listen to yourself, stay true to what you want and good luck!!!</p>
<p>You’ll be doing yourself a favor by taking some time off. However, you don’t TELL the hiring company that you want to start in August, you ask their permission 
You should also explore if there is a hiring bonus or moving bonus that could help you fund your months of freedom. </p>
<p>Take advantage of your last months of school to get out and socialize, and to visit the health center for some counseling while it is still available and low in cost. Lots of kids have separation issues with their parents - you’ll get a counselor with some experience in these issues. You should start to think of the separation in three parts. One is what your parents say and do. They are unlikely to change much, so this is out of your control. The second part is how you react to them. This is very much under your control, and is a great area in which to practice civility and maturity - to treat them as you wish to be treated, as a considerate adult. The third area is taking action that is based on good judgement and is independent of your parents wishes. If you quit work entirely (though I don’t think that was a serious threat) you’ll just be reacting to them. Who has control then?</p>
<p>As I said at the beginning, you need this time to sort things out and the time is now - work on your new relationship with your parents, and take advantage of all the social opportunities college still has to offer. Good luck!</p>
<p>Congratulations on your achievements! </p>
<p>Now, I strongly recommend counseling—but not for the reasons you might think.</p>
<p>Your point of view appears to be out of line with reality. You had to live at home while attending community college? Most community college students do. What, did your parents make you pay rent? … Refuse to let you eat with them? Your parents wouldn’t give you money for college. What, they wouldn’t fire the butler? They bought themselves matching Jaguars, and wouldn’t give you one, too? You had to work during college, and it was living hell. What did you parents make you do? Was it sweatshop work? You had to sell drugs? You made mob hits? You didn’t get to take vacations. Your parents jetted off to St. Moritz over Christmas, and left you home alone to work? You’ll have a job after graduation, and your parents aren’t appropriately in awe. So now you want to refuse the job, join the military or do something else to make them mad? </p>
<p>There’s no need to reply to these questions; I’m trying to point out that the posters who imply that you are justifiably angry at your parents aren’t really helping.</p>
<p>I had a full ride my last two years of college, and chose to work anyway. I was exempt from exams my final semester of college, so I started my new job before graduation, and was thrilled to be able to do so. The only vacation I took in four years of college and four years of grad school was to visit my sister once over spring break—which mostly meant I graded papers (as a TA) sitting by her apartment pool, because she and her husband had to work. We worked because we needed money, and we didn’t expect our parents to give it to us.</p>
<p>Your parents didn’t owe you a college education. They didn’t have to let you live with them after high school. Your working wasn’t their punishment of you; it is what honest people do when they need money. Your ongoing resentment of them doesn’t help you and certainly doesn’t endear you to them, either. </p>
<p>It is indeed disappointing that your parents aren’t more supporting of you and your choices. But really, is it entirely their fault? Is it perhaps the case that they are tired of hearing you complain that they didn’t do more for you?</p>
<p>True, you are an adult. Given that, what do you plan to do to mend your relationship with your parents? And when are you going to forgive them for their shortcomings?</p>
<p>Take the time most time off your future employer will permit. We have had many kids (most) request not to start working until July or August 1. September would be stretching it. Don’t ask for you parent’s approval or permission. Just tell them your plan as a finality. In a few years they might actually start to see you as an adult and not a kid. Until they do you have no duty to them except to let them know you are alive and well every so often. Buy some interim catastrophic health coverage. It’s cheap for a young person.<br>
I don’t think you need therapy or any of that stuff. Just a little declaration of freedom and independence. Don’t dwell on what you missed but start now making your needs #1. What your parents say no longer matters. They may or may not be evil but it does not matter anymore. You are free. There will be plenty of time to make peace with them in the future.</p>
<p>Echoing lots of the messages above:
You’re an adult. Figure out what your options are and pick the one that suits YOU best. If you can cover your expenses and are being otherwise independent, you don’t owe anyone an explanation, including your parents. </p>
<p>Would it be beneficial to talk to someone who could help you get some perspective on how to take control of your life and relate to your parents in a loving way but without letting them run your life?</p>
<p>Earning a living is important, but that doesn’t necessarily mean planning your whole life around getting the most money. You need some money to be happy but you don’t need to sacrifice everything else to get just a little more.</p>
<p>I say, figure out how to cover your expenses and take some time off. Relax, travel, work at a coffee shop if you want to. Claim your life and make it fantastic!</p>
<p>FYI, I am a parent of two college kids and this is what I tell them.</p>
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OP, as you see, some people will not be sympathetic to your concerns, so be careful how you express yourself about this to your parents and to others. You want to avoid generating rude and unhelpful responses like the one above.
I think it’s important to separate what you expect your parents to do for you–probably not much–and what impact you are willing to let them have on decisions you make for yourself. If you want to travel before going to work *and can afford to pay for it yourself *that’s entirely your decision. If you’re thinking of asking them to pay for it, their past performance is a likely predictor of their response.</p>
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<p>YOu are an adult- and soon will have a college degree.
With rights, come responsibilities- however you are well equipped to make and live by your own decisions.</p>
<p>Your parents opinions should be considered- just to give respect to adults with experience who care about you, but you have the final say- because you aren’t still financially dependent on them are you?</p>