S Reinhart essay on About Teens magazine

When I was in sixth grade I used to tell my classmates that my parents were hippies. Of course my parents were like their parents and had jobs, children, and lived in a house in the middle of the suburbs, but I liked making them sound unusual and different from everyone else.

The idea of my parents being hippies started one summer when I came across their old school and prom pictures. If they weren’t hippies they sure looked like they were. Then I had a hard time believing that my parents, the ones with the rules and the ones who set my curfew could be so, well unconcerned and amiable looking. So ever since then to me my parents have been hippies.

I’ve grown up since then and no longer call my parents hippies when people ask what they do. I have made many decisions for myself and have made many independent choices. My parents have always supported me and my question of society. From becoming vegan, to becoming an activist, to becoming a writer, and more upsetting to my dad, an Al Gore fan, my parents have always let me make my own assumptions about the world. Looking back I could not have been more wrong in assuming my parents were not free-thinking people.

My Dad seems to be the typical southern Indiana guy. He’s a republican, deer hunter, and he questions global warming. Needless to say we don’t agree on a whole lot of things. Although my dad doesn’t agree with some of my opinions, he always let me exercise my right to be an individual, and because of that it makes it easier to accept his opinions and other people’s opinions that don’t necessarily agree with me. I used to think my way was the right way and there was no other was of seeing it. I wanted to be open-minded but I was far from it. My dad taught me to open my eyes.

My mother is often confronted that she enables me to do the things that I do. I am grateful that my mom supports my ideas opinions and lets me be an individual.

I was not raised getting ideas shoved down my throat. I was brought up to have my own views on everything from what I eat to what I believe in as in religion. My parents have enabled me to be a free-thinker, or as I more egotistically like to call myself, a revolutionist.

My parents have taught my siblings and I to become ourselves. Because of the ways they taught us we know that we can change the world we live in. In that way I think my parents are more of the revolutionist against the mainstream. From hippies to revolutionist, I am thankful for my parents and everything they have taught me to be.