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My parents aren't prohibitively opposed to my gaming (and other entertainment hobbies), but...
...what will happen is that my mom will produce this very irritating undercurrent of dissatisfaction with my academic work, prompting various outbursts of scolding and associated random actions. Such as complaining that I've been wasting my time by not signing up college classes to learn, well, whatever.
See, taking classes requires me to pay tuition. And gas money, especially if I'm going to somewhere other than nearby Hartford. And stupid shit like parking fees, and university fees, and other crap. We're not wealthy people; we don't have extra money to waste on random college courses. At least, that's as far as I can tell--and keep in mind that I might also get flak if I take a class and end up heading in a direction that's not related to it. And at the very least I feel bad about it. So I had better have a good reason before I take some random course. Extra good reason if I'm going to go as far as Boston or NYC for the course. This means I'd better know what I'm going to be doing or where I'm going to be headed academically/professionally before taking courses, so at the very least I'd have some idea of how to choose appropriate courses. I only found out at the end of March this year that I actually got into this one program and even then and even now I still have doubts about whether that's a good idea as in how I would be able to succeed at that personally/professionally (i.e. make a career out of it) and so I'd need to decide this before I can have a framework in which to choose appropriate non-degree coursework.
But more importantly, why does this stupid drama come up every time I openly engage in non-productive entertainment activities?
It's like, my reason for hiding my stuff is no longer (as it was when I was in high school) to keep my parents from knowing that I'm, say, playing games, because they already know I do. Nowadays, the real reason is to keep drama from happening. Of course, this also means that I'm very constrained as to what I can do, and when. I rarely ever get the chance to sit down and play a game or watch an episode of something leisurely, and when I have the chance it's often really late at night.
And anytime "scheduled fun" comes up, such as attending a convention or participating in a puzzlehunt, I had damn well better look very busy with or deferential toward productive activities--and I STILL get a ton of flak for even participating in them even part-time in the first place.
Yet when I ask my parents about why they are so against my being involved in these activities, they insist they're not against it, but they repeat the same additional message over and over, that I ought to be focusing more on my academic/professional advancement. With the implication that if I were, I wouldn't be doing these silly things. And again, they stress that they don't prohibit me from being involved in these entertainment activities...but they give me flak like crazy whenever I do them. What kind of signal do they think that sends?
Oh, by the way, this is part of the reason why I can't ever play D&D when at home. Except play-by-post stuff. Because that doesn't require I keep to a schedule, and I can drop it anytime to focus on more important things.
Oh, and there's also my parents being allergic to the word "game". Allergic, as in, +8 (in a d20 system) to flying into a rage over my participating in these activities.
Comments
Well what are your plans for the future? I think they may be worried that you have no plan.
...So do they think Doctors, Engineers, etc. only work all the time and never have fun?
I think the only time I heard this, I pointed out that my $15 WoW subscription was less than my parents spent on weekend movies that were usually terrible, and got considerably more hours on the dollar to boot. And of course these days there's indie game deals on Steam for absurdly cheap.
Didn't really get any flak saying I should be focusing more on academics though; I usually doubted myself more than they did on that one.
When my parents tried this, I blew them off entirely. They gave up after about a month, and I had sweet, sweet serenity in my house.
That does sound annoying, but my guess is that your parents probably just want what is best for you. I think they want to see you have a successful career and unfortunately view your pastimes as detracting from that. Still, I imagine that once you are a bit more settled, they will see that and not be as critical.
So yeah, it might be frustrating right now, but eventually I figure that this kind of stuff will disappear once you are more established on your own and such. I suppose that is easier said than done though.
"That does sound annoying, but my guess is that your parents probably just want what is best for you. I think they want to see you have a successful career and unfortunately view your pastimes as detracting from that. Still, I imagine that once you are a bit more settled, they will see that and not be as critical. So yeah, it might be frustrating right now, but eventually I figure that this kind of stuff will disappear once you are more established on your own and such."
Precisely. I can't truly judge since I don't see the situation first-hand, but I do think this is the best possible guess at what's going on.
Yeah, seconding Louie on this. It's probably done with the best of intentions, and it'll probably only completely end when you're financially independent from your parents and it's your money/time to waste.
These sorts of passive-aggressive arguing tactics are best met with a similar strategy: tell 'em to stop projecting their own failed ambitions onto you. Regardless of whether or not it's true, it'll probably hit a nerve and turn the tables on them. Stay persistent in the same manner as they are, and they're much less likely to bring it up if the conversation always goes down the same route. I've observed this tactic used by my little brother, who is a bit of a bum, so peruse at your own risk.
I do have first-hand experience with this sort of thing and my parents constantly accused me of being a slacker with no ambition, fearing that my sole goal in life was playing video games. After I went to university for a while, they were fine with me doing it regardless of how long I engaged in those activities, though at that point, I also realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life rotting away at the Internet.
^^ See, I can't think of a whole lot of situations that are best solved by outright being a jackass to your parents. I mean really, some things just aren't cool.
Most of the situations that do call for that involve, like, The Runaways.
It is a short-term solution, not a long-term one. Essentially, this seems to alienate parents in a way that is retconned in their heads as 'going through a phase', for which amends can be made at a later stage in life(eg, when you are independent and self-sufficient). It achieves the same level of alienation as moving out, methinks, but with seeing a pattern in a few anecdotes that might not even be culturally relevant to the States, don't pin me down on it.