Urgh!

I walked into the kitchen, where my father and mother were sitting at the table, to find something to eat. After opening the fridge, I heard my father say, “Dina, would you like a job on the floor? I can call my friend Pete and you’ll have one in a minute.” “No, Daddy, I’m not interested in that kind of job.” He looked at me and earnestly replied, “you’re not?” I didn’t know how to respond! Luckily, my mother did that for me by saying, “No, [insert my father’s name], she’s not. But maybe you didn’t hear her the last 68 times she said that.” Hehe.
My father wants me to get a job, but the only jobs he considers “jobs” are the ones he knows--which limits me greatly. It also doesn’t help that he thinks I’m a flake. Now, I’ll admit to occasionally being flaky--but a complete flake? No, that’s not me.
My mother was told she needed to get something useful when she was in college and ended up graduating with a degree in economics that did diddlysquat for her. She always wanted to do something more creative and artsy but, because she wasn’t allowed to follow through with that, had to wait until my youngest brother was a year old to go to Parson’s and finally become an Interior Designer (and she’s good).
Granted, my father does have good cause for concern. Growing up, my job ambitions included “tightrope walker,” “diamond miner who owns twelve Dalmatians,” and “really famous actress.” But I’ve matured since…I want to be a writer now. “You’re 19; if you’re serious about being a writer, you should be published by now,” he says in response to that. Okay, so maybe being a writer is a cop-out I use when I am not sure how to tell him that I can’t make up my mind. There is a crazy world out there with so many fields I wish I could venture into! I want to run philanthropies, be a foley artist, direct movies, produce newsmagazine programs, manage political campaigns, own a café, buy land in Israel and the Sinai desert, write editorials, and be a stay-at-home mom.
To protest my father’s pleas that I switch my major from Creative Writing to Poli Sci and go to law school so that I can work in politics or switch my major to Economics and consider going to business school because I would do great as a customer service person and do well off commission, I tell him I can’t do the 9-5. I’d die. His response is always the same, though: “do you want to do mortgages--selling them to customers? You’ll make a lot of money off commission…or how about at the stock exchange? I can get you a job on the floor...”