Much as the raft of letters concerning this career or that are interesting, and even provocative, I doubt that LW is really up for looking at career choices at the moment. Selecting a caraeer is not like going to the local buffet restaurant and taking one of this and one of that......

There are several core issues, and they confound to create something of a gordian knot for this poor kid, struggling to define himself. The underlying one is a pair of didactic parents who, out of the most altruistic motives, want to have "the best" for their beloved progeny. Not surprising, but their concept of what is "the best is self-limiting". Carey's 'bait and switch" recommendation is intersting, and if LW loves law, he is now on the home stretch..... but if not....

The focus on addressing/not addressing mommy/daddy wishes has tied LW up so thoroughally that I doubt he has a clue what he really likes, really doesn't like......

LW needs to understand that his life will be lived by him, not his parents, vicariously. That said, making a move towards independence may have massive interrelational and fiscal impact, and he needs to breathe deep before leaping into the deep end of the pool.

If LW can grasp that, and I believe he has some understanding of that, he may wish to embark upon a process of self-discovery. Scary, and rewarding. Perhaps his academic setting has counselors who can facilitate an introspective process of testing, determinging what his real likes and strengths are, and where his real dislikes and weaknesses are. No reason to pitch a career tent in an area of distaste.....and, if he chooses an academic career that leads to a profession that he can love, he may "discover" that some of the physical symptoms of his massive tension will - voila - go away.

His notion of entering the Peace Corps is brilliant, I suspect - an opportunity to strip away all of the trappings of his family, rely exclusively on his brain and his ability to serve, and carve out a life for two years. Everyone I have known who has entered the Peace Corps, many for the same reason as this young man, have left it with a different life-focus, a clearer head, and a two-yeaer buffer from toxic parenting......

The debate in my WASP left-liberal trust-fund family of origin raged deeply about which helping profession I would enter, driven, no doubt, by a sense of nobless oblige. My father was a social worker, my mother a physician..... and either would have been"acceptable".

What was not terrribly acceptable was becoming an architect. So, I went far, far away, so they did not see the carnage that I was creating out of my life...... and I paid for three of my four professional degrees myself. It was easier, staggering student loans notwithstanding. And then, in the declining health of my parents created, no doubt, by a dual addiction to booze, I discovered that the trust funds had been pissed away, literally, and that the emperor had no clothes. There were, ultimately, darker discoveries, but that is not important here.... what was important was that I self-actualized to create a life that I wanted to live, my parents' projections and suppositions notwithstanding. It is my life, not theirs...... and I enjoy living it.

I would urge upon LW to sieze his own life for himself, recognizing the massive cultural and familial challenges that he will face in doing so. Come to think of it, maybe the Peace Corps is all he needs to tell his parents at the moment... and then he needs to do it!

I am fascinated by those who leap to judge LW for his callow youth, and assume that seasoning, somehow, in "the real world' will illustrate to him the callowness of his beliefs. Subsequent to that, one might assume that LW will return, gratefully and humbly to the fold, tail tucked between his legs.

I suspect that the difference in political beliefs is the tip of the iceberg, and that this has become the "identified conflict" for LW, perhaps being more safe than looking at what may be, by now, profound belief differences between he and his parents. Politics, in and of itself, are not usually the shear line for severing from a family.... to that end, one might encourage LW to look a bit deeper at his anger, not to shed or discard it, but rather, to honor and understand it so taht he can more eptly understand his passion and palpable disgust. When he fully understands more precisely what is driving his profound negative reaction to his parents, he can then move his own adult life forward with greater clarity and self-possession, motivated by a proactive sense of self, rather than a reactive sense of response to his presumably toxic parents. Will that lead to a raprochment with his parents? Possibly. Or, it might lead to a clear and concise severance of any relationship with his parents at all.

As for the letter writers who assume that "this young lad needs to know that his parents will lovingly be there for him in some future "crunch time"....... for heavens sakes, grow up. That concept betrays a naievete about the incredible range of behavior by - parents...... Not all parents have attended the John and Harriet Cleaver school of parenting.