Need to vent

I know the button said "ask for advice" , and perhaps I could use that to an extent, but mainly I just need to let some things out.

Some back story: my parents have always been extremely pushy, not the worst kind of pushy people, but they've always been excessively generous to a point where they showered me and my two sisters with things we didn't really need, and kept us from ever having to work to get anything we wanted. My sisters grew up happy with that, they are both over 25, the Arabian culture (we're from Egypt) makes it okay for them to be still living at home at this age and they rely heavily on my parents for financial security until they can find someone naive enough with equally rich parents to provide them with the same kind of extravagant lifestyle they got used to from living with our rich parents for that long.

I'm currently a university student, I experienced a little bit of a mishap during my enrollment in college, I originally just wanted to go to commerce school in a cheap public university to specialize in accounting since that was a subject I liked and easily excelled at in high school, my dad kept telling me I'm going to be bum if I do so and that I must listen to him and go to engineering school instead: something I was never genuinely interested in or even good at. I ended up going for one semester and then decided to switch majors, turns out there's a weird policy in public schools that states that you can't choose to join the English language section in the faculty of commerce if you're not a fresh high school graduate (the English language for some reason is pretty important for employability in Egypt so that was a kind of a big issue), so the only alternative was a private university which is much more expensive (55k EGP per year). Student loans are pretty much non-existent in Egypt since there's a huge disparity between the cost of higher private education and salaries on average. You basically either go to a cheap public university for which you won't need a loan, or you go to stupidly expensive private one, for which acquiring a loan is virtually impossible, so that's what I ended up doing. I used to have a part time job as a sales agent in a call center during the first year, but I dropped that after a month and a half or something because it was draining my mental health alongside the pressure to get exceptionally high grades to get the scholarship discount (originally the cost was around 70k or so per year, and it rose up even further now for the more recent cohorts). I tried to get another job during the second year, but it turns out part time jobs are nowhere to be found in Egypt with a reasonable pay at least, so I got a full time job instead that was an 2 hours away from where my university is at and about 1.5 hours from where I live, needless to say, as an economics student with several submissions per semester, getting that job was a disaster for me: I was either sleeping for just a couple of hours or missing classes due to morning shifts and then getting warning letters (eventually I could've gotten barred from sitting for the finals) so I had to quit that too.

I'm currently in my third year with no hope for even partial financial independence in the mean time. My parents, like all other insanely rich Egyptian parents, decided they wanted to buy me a flat for me to get married in, I told them that I wasn't planning at all to get married nor did I even want to stay in Egypt. My uncle lives in Australia with his wife and I was hoping that his presence there could somehow help me with the emigration process, although to be honest I haven't looked deeply enough into that yet. The problem is they want me to go sign up a contract for the flat to be under my name, (it costs 1.5 million EGP) with monthly payment of almost 17k. I think that's absolutely insane, I know they're gonna be paying for everything, but I'm extremely against that, I want to be finally independent after I graduate, I don't wanna keep on feeling that I'm indebted to someone for the sake of anything. I told my mom I'll just rent a small flat anywhere as long as it's reasonably close to where I'll be working, I know these are all somehow imaginary plans, but I've already searched online and there are fairly affordable stuff out there as long as your purpose for renting doesn't involve bringing in a wife and kids with you. They're now pressuring me to sign the contact and I keep saying no.

I believe a great contributor to my depression is that I've never had to work for anything, so I've never learned to appreciate the value of anything and I've always been haunted with that feeling of incompetence and dependency, which just sucks, I don't care if it's difficult (at least for now I don't), I wanna at least try to start my own life on my own terms and to be as independently responsible for it as much as I can after I graduate. I don't wanna follow that pathetic model of allowing my rich parents to buy me a flat and then look for an excessively conservative, religious and obedient woman with parents that are just as rich as mine to buy for us the furniture and everything else we'd need around the house. I despise that model, and I don't wanna be a part of it. It reduces potentially competent adults to spoiled little children. I believe you're either a responsible adult from A to Z or you're not at all. If your parents bought every single luxury they could afford for you without you even needing it or working one bit for it, then obviously you're not responsible at all, and I don't wanna be like that.

I know that economically speaking I might sound like a pompous idiot, and maybe I am, but I just can't shake off that feeling of aversion towards the whole thing. I think that my only chance to really grow as a person is to try to live my life on my own terms, to only consume what I've earned, even if that could be torturous, and I know it most probably is, I still think it's important or else I'll always be a sheep waiting for someone to direct it and to feed it and bark orders at it. If they're going to control where I live and also pay for it, then it follows that they're going to control who I'm gonna marry, if I ever get around to considering that in the first place (I don't wanna do it in Egypt, but maybe in a more civilized country, I'd find it more tempting) and how I'm gonna raise my children and pretty much all other aspects of my life, and they've done so so far because as a teenager I currently have no means to counter that, but I wanna break that vicious cycle after graduation, and yeah that's pretty much it.

I mean you are dealing with the same issues that young adults with wealthy parents deal with world wide - financial control. Only way out is to learn how to say NO and stay completely firm on that. It's either that or your parents will control your life for as long as they live. Moving away to another country is actually a good idea. Distance can do two things - remove you from your parent's direct control while reducing the friction of direct conflict on a daily basis. When you are far away and out of their sight....they'll chill out and learn to let go a bit....hopefully...usually....

What they are doing right now is trying to financially anchor you to them. Go to this uni, get into debt, buy this condo, they'll pay, but your name, your liability and you will have be at their beck and call or else have serious financial consequences and problems that will be yours to bear. There is no free lunch here. They are setting you up to control you and again, no and distance will be your best friends here. Talk your father into helping you move and live abroad and sell him on how much better and more beneficial and prestigious that would be for him, yup, you heard that right. Appeal to his ego because you are secondary to that.

Also, don't be so negative toward yourself. You had jobs and the worst of the worst kind. Going to uni is a job at your age. You do have to work and have been working. In fact you've been persevering through things you don't even like or want to do, so you are made of some pretty tough stuff. Give yourself some credit there, you are stronger than you think.

Have you ever met with a dean at the public college to state your case and learn how to make switching majors a possibility for you? If not, there's no time like the present. Then you could live and work close to school and your parents' approval would be irrelevant.

Thank you so much DancingFool for your encouraging words, they are much needed.

Catfeeder, unfortunately it's too late for that now, I'm already in my third year and will be graduating next year, so there's no point in going all the way back now to the starting point, besides, the way things work here in Egypt I imagine are pretty different from any western country, maybe in a more civilized society there'd be more understanding people in charge, maybe not, either way the general attitude here is simply: the rule is the rule and it's either you're willing to bribe your way through it or you just gotta get back in line :/

AS DancingFool so succintly put it:

"There is no free lunch here" (or anywhere).

I also agree with DF that it would be a very good idea to go abroad.

You could already get the process under way by contacting your uncle in Australia, as the immigration formalities can be lengthy.

You are very commendable in your philosophy. remember: your parents also think they are showing you their love by financing things. Say NO to the flat. But can you say yes to just one small thing, like "gee, what i really need help with is paying for my school books, or do you think that friend of yours who works at X could tell you who i should call to get an interview for a part time job there/ Does anyone have a connection? Throw them a bone like that if what they are doing is to show they care.

But otherwise, i think making your own way is the way to go. If you go abroad you can always come back, or maybe you can move somewhere else within your country where you will be a little more on your own

Thank you so much DancingFool for your encouraging words, they are much needed.

Catfeeder, unfortunately it's too late for that now, I'm already in my third year and will be graduating next year, so there's no point in going all the way back now to the starting point, besides, the way things work here in Egypt I imagine are pretty different from any western country, maybe in a more civilized society there'd be more understanding people in charge, maybe not, either way the general attitude here is simply: the rule is the rule and it's either you're willing to bribe your way through it or you just gotta get back in line :/

Don't have any illusions about "civilized" society. Bribery is just more subtle and more sophisticated, more hidden under the label of "connections".

Anyway, one angle to try with your parents is advanced degree abroad. It will help you get that initial visa, which can lead to employment and work visa post grad, and so on. One way to extricate yourself and gain a good foothold elsewhere.

The uncle connection is too distant for you to get a permanent visa there. This also means that you can look at other options like EU, Canada, etc. You aren't limited to Australia.

the way things work here in Egypt I imagine are pretty different from any western country, maybe in a more civilized society there'd be more understanding people in charge, maybe not, either way the general attitude here is simply: the rule is the rule and it's either you're willing to bribe your way through it or you just gotta get back in line :/

I think your view is shaped by the way you view your parental relationship as well. Keep that in mind. At 17-22 we think we are vastly more worldly, wise. elightened and just than our parents are. It takes time to realize not everything is always black and white or without choice

I dunno if anyone is still looking at this thread, anyway a little bit of an update: it turns out that somehow the cheques will be under my father's name while the property itself will be under mine, so my concern about financial risks is a bit mitigated now. Still everything else I mentioned about why I feel uncomfortable about this whole thing holds, and also just because I won't be legally in trouble because of this debt doesn't mean they won't view the fact that they are paying for the place they want me to live in as something that gives them the right to intervene in my life and nag me about living the way they want me to. My first move after graduation has to be moving out of the house into a place of my own that I'll pay for myself, I don't wanna get too ahead of myself, so I guess I'll think about my next move after I get there, and of course thank you all for your helpful input :)