My Daughter Doesn't Listen To Me

I was a journalism major in college. I wanted to move to NYC after college, work for Cosmopolitan magazine, run with the beautiful people (I wouldn't fit in mind you, but maybe I would just kinda know them) and just live on the edge. But life gets in the way, and I didn't have any money so I took a job as a secretary at an advertising agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, got married, had a baby and there you have it. The only thing I did do that was even remotely a part of my dream was visit New York City (and that was only recently).

Now, I've never, not once, advised my daughter to be a journalism major, but that is exactly what she wants to do. She's on the school newspaper staff this year during her junior year. She kind of has a plan for her life. She has a deep love, and an unbelieveable knowledge of music far and wide from Dylan to Adam Lambert ... she knows about them all. It's really amazing and I am not just saying that, she really has a gift. She also is a talented writer, really creative. Her dream is to combine both of her loves and work, some day, for Rolling Stone magazine .... or something like that. She has a plan. She's looking for the right college with the right program and the right internship. No, I'm not helping her. She's on her own because it's really not my dream for her, it's her dream for her.

When she first joined the newspaper staff, I thought she should join the yearbook staff. No. When she joined the newspaper staff (first year), she told me she wanted to ask her teacher if she could have a music column (not many, if any, students get a column of their own) and I gave her my really brilliant motherly advice, "Don't rock the boat. Do as your told. Work hard and good things will come your way. Blah blah blah." Well, guess what. She didn't listen to me. She went straight to her teacher and told her what she wanted to do, pitched her column idea ... and now she has a column all her own called "For the Record" about classic rock musicians. And it's good.

I should know that you never get anywhere in this world by playing it safe. The most successful people take chances. They put themselves out there. They usually are risk takers. I think she's going to do just fine.

Read her column "For the Record" at http://www.tigernewspaper.net/.