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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All work is honorable and respectable. She is working 2 jobs and paying her bills. Be proud of her.[/quote]

I just worry about her longevity.  She doesn’t ever ask me for money but lives in a crowded apartment with her girlfriend and band mates.  She just had so much potential now it seems like she may as well have dropped out.  She’d be in the same place.[/quote]

OP, I understand where you're coming from and your worries about her future.

Have you read the book "Crying in H Mart?" It's by a musician (Michelle Zauner, goes by Japanese Breakfast), and it details her life after she graduates from Bryn Mawr and does exactly what your daughter is doing: Waitressing at a Mexican restaurant while trying to "make it" in the Philly punk scene with her band. It pretty accurately details how disappointed her mom was in her (I don't know if cultural elements are at play here, but Michelle Zauner's mom immigrated from Korea) and how she continued her passions anyways, even after her mother passes away.

It's a really powerful and moving elegy to a musician dealing with her mother's disappointment in her, and it has tons of compassion for both sides of this dilemma. Highly recommend. Even if your daughter doesn't become as famous as the author (which, let's be honest, probably won't happen), I think you'd benefit a lot from reading her "side."[/quote]

PP here, I forgot to mention one last thing.

The book talks a lot about pride and shame. These are powerful emotions, but also potentially destructive to artists and musicians. IIRC in the book, Zauner refers to her younger self as "shameless" and regrets some of the actions she took against her mother because of that. But she also attributes this same shamelessness to lack of ego/pride that ended up catapulting her to success. If I had to take a guess, OP, you probably took a lot of pride in the fact that your DD was a "high achiever" who went to Vandy, and her current job situation brings you a lot of shame.

I'm willing to bet your DD lacks that shame as well, which is potentially very powerful for her as a musician. I also really appreciate down-to-earth people without egos as someone who has struggled with pride/shame my whole life.  [/quote]

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