David Gerhard

When it comes to growing up there are usually two things that exert the most force into making the process faster or slower, parents and environment. When I was growing up, because of whatever “privileges” my parents had, they were still children also. They were still learning and therefore could not teach me the proper things I thought later on in life they should have taught me. That gets rid of the first variable. As far as the latter variable, I don’t think a house in the middle of a forest, or farm, where the next neighbor is two miles down, is nessicerly dangerous territory. Don’t take the last couple of sentences the wrong way, I wasn’t some spoiled rich kid, money wasn’t the biggest thing in the factor. My parents just believed I should grow up on my own and experience things the way I wanted to. I didn’t have chores, my parents were like my friends, and I was never taught “proper” money habits. Fast Forward to now, I’m 18 going into college full time; expected now by the world, instead of my parents, to get a job, support myself, and learn the ways of the world fast. Except the world doesn’t care; it’s easier not to succeed then to excel, but I have to try like everyone else. Part of me wishes I was forced to grow up faster in a more structured environment. The next 4 years I am now going to have to work hard to compress a childhood of lessons I should of embraced and searched for, into a quarter of the time, acting as not only the teacher but also the student.