Clearly, she has no sense of obligation towards her parents.

My family and I got to talking about my cousins the other night. I'll skip the details, but know that a lot of our conversation had to do with how, well, different they are from us. At times we don't even consider them a part of our family. I guess that's because they seem so detached from us, and they really act so differently from us. One thing that gets to me about that side of my family is that the kids seem to have little to no regard for their parents. And by "little to no regard," I mean that they don't seem to have a sense of obligation towards their parents.

Okay, so maybe I do have to fill you in a bit. You see, my cousin just left for college. Unlike the rest of our family, who opted to stay at a local college, she chose to dorm in a university. I mean, the university isn't "plane trip" far, but it's still far enough for my cousin to have all the freedom of a college student away from home. She moved to this college stating that she would shoot for a degree in Engineering, the field that her father wanted her to pursue a degree in. Overjoyed by his daughter's decision to take up Engineering in college, he decides to pull money from his pension plan to help pay for his daughter's education.

I would have been okay with everything if this was where this story ended; however, this is where things go awry. So the money's already been taken from the pension plan, and college is pretty much paid for already. The problem is, my cousin chose not to major in Engineering, after all. What she chose to major in, I don't know, but I do know that it isn't Engineering. And her dad knows nothing of it. He still thinks she's in Engineering.

And what's worse is that she's joined a sorority of some sort; and I assure you that it isn't Alpha Phi or anything... Now I'm not going to make any harshly negative presumptions about her sorority, but again, her dad has no say in the matter.

There are a lot of other things that she has done that follow that same lack of respect towards her parents, but this one example shall suffice, as it was her most recent attack.

I understand that she's in college now and she should have the freedom to do as she pleases and make her own decisions and what not, but it just bothers me that the decisions that she does make are made with little to no regard towards what her parents would think. I know that if I found myself in her position, I would have stayed in Engineering, since that was the reason why her dad took money out from his pension to begin with. Or, at the very least, I would not have accepted the money from her dad, knowing that the money would not go towards what he wanted. I mean, he's pulling from his own wellness in the future-- he's sacrificing money he's been saving for so many years, just so that he could see his child follow in her father's footsteps; I would feel nothing short of horrible for myself if I put that money to waste. Also, I would have, at the very least, sought for permission to join a sorority; that, or I would have let them know what the sorority was about, and discussed the possibility with them, instead of blindly going into one without so much as a word from my parents.

Clearly, she has no sense of obligation towards her parents. And there is hardly any respect. But that leads me to my earlier question: Why is she like this? I would not have done what she has, and I am more than certain that any of my siblings, and any of my other cousins, would not have done anything like that. We have so much respect for our parents; we understand how hard they work for us. Yet it seems to me like she just sees them as a source of money and necessities. I don't understand at all how she is so different from the rest of us.