Education...

The Indian culture itself is 100% different than the American culture... In the States you graduate from high school and you either go to college and move out of your parents house, or you start working and move out of your parents house. In India most people live with there parents till they get married and even after.

In the States most of our parents have a retirement plan and that’s what they live off of when they are retired. In India the children take care of there parents till there last day, that is one of the best qualities Tom has in him I think. He wants to make sure his parents are taken care of till the end, and I am sure we will be able to do that. Don’t get me wrong, if my parents needed something we would be right there to help them with out a dough, but like I said Americans have one “retirement” plan and Indians have another.

When Tom first told me that we would have to take care of his parents, all I could think of is us living poor to support them. Because I have a lot of Mexican friends here in the states and that’s what they do, they work and work and work and send ALL of the money they make back home. So one day after I had thought about what I was going to say to Tom about how I didn’t want to live poor for the rest of my life I confronted him. I just told him how I felt and what I thought about this subject really. He simply explained to me that one, I over think stuff way to much, and two we would not live poor but that his parents were important to him and they need to be taken. I respect that and after a long conversation I now feel way better about this subject.

In my family very early on my mom and dad probably knew that my brother and myself were not college material, school was not our thing. My parents taught us life skills, how to get a good job, how to budget your bills, how to own our own home and so on. So I grew up, got a good job( not a career but a job), and bought my own house eventually.

In Toms family education was everything!! From day one you were told you would be going to college and that was that, period!!! So Tom graduated from school and went on to college and eventually graduated from college.

So the question has arose between him and I several times about education. When he was a kid he lived in a hostel, and went to what we in the states would consider a private school. They had holidays and some summer off so they could go home but while they were in school they stayed in a hostel that was at the school. I on the other hand when to a public school and lived with my parents while I was in school. Had I gone to a private school would I be different? Had he gone to a public school would he be different? Who really knows, but that’s besides the point. He wants to “ship” our kids to a private school somewhere and I want to home school them. I say “ship” as a joke really and he knows I’m joking too, because we get into little debates about that sometimes.

In the end of course I want to do what is best for our children and I know that Tom wants what is best for them too. I know I will have to compromise on this issue because education is so important to him, not that its not important to me, but this is one subject he is very strong on. After all a relationship is about giving and taking, and I can tell you I get my way most of the time, so when he feels so strongly about something I know it is important to him.