Growing up, we take a lot of what our parents say with a grain of salt. We're so focused on building relationships with our friends that the relationships we have with our parents can be taken for granted. Was my relationship with my parents always perfect? No. And I genuinely don’t believe that the relationship we have with our parents is meant to be perfect.

Our parents have a lot of fears and doubts about whether they’re doing the right things for us, and I’m sure every kid could be a better child in some way. I won’t lie, there were times that I was nothing but a complete jerk to my parents. And there were times my parents' efforts to do the right thing for me fell short.

Yet when I moved off to college and gradually started spending less and less time at home, I realized when I would come home from breaks how similar I actually was to my parents. And I also started to realize how much of what they told me growing up ended up being true.

Was every tidbit of advice they gave me growing up salient to me as an adult? No. But wow was a lot of it.

The majority of what they told me about relationships was right. They told me that there would be a lot of people that would try to take advantage of my kindness. They taught me to keep my guard up because sometimes the kindness a guy or “friend” can show disguises ulterior motives. They taught me not to settle and that I was a kind and beautiful person worthy of a friend/boyfriends who would treat me as well as I intended to treat them. My dad always told me to “think like a princess.” I now use that advice to control my own space and to be critical of the people I choose to dedicate my time to.

My parents were also right about how important school actually is. Their tedious lectures on the importance of school that went in one ear out the other are now painstakingly true in college. Growing academically is a complete necessity to personal growth. Putting emphasis on my education and being one of very few in my entire family and high school to go to college has made me such a well-rounded and confident person. My parents didn’t want me to be like the people I grew up around that took up low-end jobs and got pregnant after high school as opposed to continuing their college careers.

Is college for everyone? No. But my parents taught me that I had to have a plan. They wanted to make sure that when I went off to college that I had some general idea of how the world worked and what I wanted from it. They made sure my life had structure and order, which was obnoxious growing up, but so important now that I’m in college. They weren’t afraid to let me fall sometimes and learn from it. But they were always there to encourage me when I was at my lowest.

My mom and dad have believed in my dreams since I was little. They were excited to see that I wanted to be a doctor, and because of their encouragement, my love for science and excitement for medicine has yet to leave me. They would brag about me when I did super well at my music competitions. They made me believe I could do anything I put my mind to (i.e. being a cellist/surgeon).

They made me believe in me.

They weren’t perfect, but I want to scream a thank you.