Coming of Age

As I mentioned in my previous entry, in many Turkish families being adult hardly makes a difference as long as you live with your parents. In this case, it's about my plans to buy a motorcycle or rather my plans to get the motorcycle driving license.
It's definitely not a matter of money, it never really is. It's more about the permission to do it. I just won't be able to move my parents to approve of my plans since they consider it to be way too dangerous (and they have a point of course). But this fear of risks is so typical for so many Turkish parents and grand-parents and aunts and uncles and so on and so on... I certainly feel honored that they care about my well-being and my health, but in some cases life just feels like a golden cage, in which I should not have any reason to complain but which is not fulfilling either.
Of course, I just could do whatever I want to, I mean, who's going to stop me? But it just does not work that way. My parents' approval is very important to me. If I choosed to have it my own way it would make my relation to my parents really weird. I definitely do not want to have that, but let's be honest: No one will always be able to be OK with their parents. Sooner or later it has to happen that one disagrees, no matter who that is.
And I think that one should not allow anyone to interfere in one's life-shaping choices. That'll be a bit different for married people or for parents themselves of course, but you know what I mean.
All this might sound like living through hell, but in most cases I can count on the support of my family and their advice and most importantly their patience regarding my mistakes.
So I guess I can live without riding a motorcycle. Maybe a motor scooter will do... which my parents still consider too dangerous...


Tell me about the topics you disagree with your parents. What does cause some tension in your family?

Babysitting at a Concert

The title actually says it all: Yesterday I was babysitting my cousins at a concert of Bruno Mars (you might know him, if you have any female teen relatives). The reason why I did that was because their parents only allowed it if an older relative was taking care of them. That's so incredibly typical for the Turkish culture and menatlity! Really! You could be 40 years old (I'm overdoing it of course) and your parents still would remind you to be careful and take care repeatedly. I was told the same yesterday, to drive careful and to maintain a slow speed (I was not only the babysitter but also the driver... I feel used).
So we arrived at 4 pm and waited for 3 hours to finally enter the hall and wait for another 2 hours only to listen his music for about 1 and a half hours... Seriously, that's bold! And I did all this only for my cousins. I had absolutely no interest in Bruno Mars' Music (which wasn't that bad after all). Of course, my cousins loved it.
What I want to say is, that the Turkish way of family is a medal with lots of joyful and big get-togethers and favors to ask on the one side, but on the other side plenty of duties and work as well.
I would never trade this in for anything else, even though it might get annoying from time to time. But that might just be my attitude towards this.


How about you? How does your family work? I guess it gets annoying in every family but in the end we manage to make it work out somehow.