I'm not young, (turned 35 today), but I have a number of war stories about regarding parents and their being supportive. For the first 14 years of my life, we

I'm not young, (turned 35 today), but I have a number of war stories about regarding parents and their being supportive. For the first 14 years of my life, we lived as missionaries in Central America. And, on top of that, we moved around tons. I moved 20 times before I was 21. So, I didn't really have tons of chances to develop lasting friendships aside from my parents, brothers and sisters like most teenagers. The first couple of times that I went against the parental flow, it was really rough. So, there was an immense resistance when I wanted to get our of the family business (being preachers) and follow my own dream of being a software engineer. The first time my Dad found out that I had been on a BBS, I got grounded for a week. They talked me out of majoring in CS back in 93, because they were convinced that computers were a fad. Doh! And, they talked me into being a nurse so I could have a steady job. And, that's what I've been doing for money for 15 years. I've been trying to escape nursing for 15 years. I've tried a bunch of different ideas: painting, sculpture, architecture, furniture design, Animation, Visual Effects... Non of which my family approved of or supported. Finally, I decided to go back and pursue my first love--programming and engineering. I've been chipping away at my schooling online for the past 5 years, and I'm done this semester. Meanwhile, my parents were trying to talk me out of it the entire time. So, I'm now embarking on my first startup idea, a suite of online tools to make contract nurses lives easier. And, finally, after 15 years, they're a little excited about what I'm doing. Honestly, they only started coming around to the idea of my starting an online business since Startup School. They finally understood that there might be something to these computer things after all.