Not long ago, my parents asked me a question that changed our relationship. The question was: "All right, if accounting is not right for you, what is? What do you want to do with the rest of your life?" My answer surprised them.
I suppose it surprised them because they had been molding me to lead a very different sort of life. I am an only child, and my parents came to America for my sake and not their own. Back in Moldova where we lived, my parents had a comfortable life, but there was no future for me in Moldova, so my parents gave up their comfortable life and came to America, so that I might have a chance to be successful and happy.
They wanted me to be an accountant because accountants make a nice living, so, to please them, I majored in accounting at Baruch College. I admit that I enjoyed some of the business and accounting classes I took, but something inside me felt that accounting wasn't right for me. I felt as if I should be doing something more productive and gratifying, but I could not pinpoint it yet.
The answer became clearer after taking a class in abnormal psychology. The course made me realize that my life could not possibly be about crunching numbers all day. I felt that I needed to make a difference in someone else's life. The class inspired me to pursue a career that helped people and gave them hope for a better life.
I transferred to Brooklyn College and enrolled as a psychology major. Later, I took a job working as a counselor in a group home, where I got to work with a developmentally disabled population. Helping them improve the quality of their lives and seeing their faces light up when they accomplish something on their own brings me a wonderfully gratifying feeling. Most of my clients have problems with articulation, and so I began helping them with their pronunciation and communication skills.
I saw something on TV that convinced me to become a speech therapist, and so, without telling my parents, I started preparing myself for that career. It was the first time in my life that I had ever made a decision without consulting my parents. Every important decision had been made together. Of course, their two votes always outweighed my one, but at least the decision was democratic.
I concealed my decision from them as long as I could, because breaking the news to them wasn't going to be easy. They had sacrificed everything for me, and I knew that they were going to be upset by my decision. It was worse than I imagined. They were shocked. My mother wept. How could I make money teaching children to talk, they demanded to know. I tried to explain my reasoning. I told them that I was unhappy being an accountant. I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything. Every day felt the same as the day before. It seemed so pointless. What good was making lots of money if I hated my life, I asked them.
So my father asked me that question, and I told him my answer: "I want to become a speech-language pathologist because I will be able to work with Operation Smile. It's a nonprofit organization that repairs cleft lips and cleft palates in children who live in poor countries. Surgeons repair this terrible facial disfigurement, and then speech therapists help the children adjust to the changes. My dream, one day, is to be one of those speech-language pathologists."
I prepared myself for an argument, but there wasn't any. My parents didn't fight at all. Instead, my father put his arms around me and hugged me, and my mother smiled. I guess they're happy with their daughter's first major decision.