It’s hard speaking with my parents sometimes. There’s a language barrier, expectations and social norms that I’m not always aware of, and the nagging questions, like why haven’t I found a husband, and when will I own property. It’s just hard.
Over the years, I’ve developed a natural response of avoidance… almost like a survival instinct. But I figured at some point I would need to inform my parental units that I was leaving the country for 4 months. So, 5 months after my deposit, and 2 months before I’d be leaving, I developed my strategy to let my parents know about Remote Year.
- Avoid it for as long as possible.
In my case, I made my down payment on June 1st and informed by parents of this life decision on a Sunday in November. This way, if there was going to be some sort of a fall out, there was only very limited time to argue. - Find a safe space for the conversation.
I opted for the Buddhist temple we visit on Sundays, so that if my mother was so inclined to freak out, she couldn’t. - Bring up the topic casually.
My conversation went something like this:
Me: So, you guys will be visiting Viet Nam next year.
Dad: Yeah, probably around March, you want to come?
Me: No… I’ll be in Europe.
Dad: Oh, for how long?
Me: Four months.
The conversation continued with various questions from my mom - Quell concerns with real life examples.
My mother actually said to me “What do you do? I don’t even know what you do!” which is fair, I don’t know how to translate Agile Practitioner, so I went to Project Manager in english, and then said, “It’s what aunt Doris used to do!” It seemed to make her feel much better that she could relate it to something and possibly have a conversation about it.
This probably isn’t the best strategy, and I fully acknowledge that, but it worked for me 😀 I mean, this is totally a healthy relationship and way of communication right?
Sans Sandee 