Home Sweet Home

One of the thoughts foremost on my mind is a concern about what will be different with my relationship with my parents when I go back home for break. This worry is based on the idea that everyone has doubles of themselves that exist in the minds of others because of how they express themselves and are therefore perceived differently by those around them. For example, my professors see me as a different person than my friends do, and my parents see me as a different person than both my professors and my friends. In high school, I definitely acted differently at home than I did at school. Here, I don’t ever have to use my “home persona”, if you will. Especially being so far from home, I feel as though I have changed a lot. I’m a little anxious to see how my relationship with my parents will be different now that I have become more independent and I am used to being able to make choices about what I do and when without having to consult anyone or let them know my plans. My parents still think of me as the person I was senior year of high school, and while I haven’t become a completely different person, I have changed in ways they have not seen, and therefore they do not perceive me as the person I see myself as now.

Credit without Credentials

My mom is the Senior Executive Assistant for the Deputy Chancellor of San Jacinto Community College in the Greater Houston area. It sounds like a fancy, super important title of someone who is extremely educated. I’m not saying that my mother isn’t intelligent and amazing at her job, because she is and she is known by those that work with her as someone who is very good at their job and always makes sure every small detail is covered, but she doesn’t have a college degree. She never attended college and never got her associate’s degree, much less a bachelor’s.

It is almost as though she has a talked of self that portrays a person who is college educated, while her unexpressed self knows that she does not have a degree. Many of her coworkers believe she has a degree even though she does not and are surprised when they find out she doesn’t. Many of the people throughout the college that she works and communicates with have doctorates or masters, and almost all of them have bachelor’s degrees. Because of this, she has to create a type of double of herself to appear as though she does have a degree in order to ensure that those who don’t know her or her work well still respect her for the quality of work she does and do not immediately judge her for her lack of degree in such a high position.