WingCommander: Every chance I had to be in gifted or Honors/AP classes in school was squashed by the JW's influence over my brainwashed parents.
Yep. I was moved out of an honors program in High School and put on a vocational track, because there was no way my mother was going to let us go to college. I lucked out, though. The engineering course I took had just added BASIC programming as an item, and I found my calling. Still, I ended up doing entry-level jobs for several years (why start a career in a world about to end?). Got lucky again when my workplace started buying more PCs and needed someone to help manage them. Within a few years, I had the career that I had been running away from. I hopped on that train and I never looked back.
My mother griped about my career ambitions until she learned how much money I could make as an IT professional (my salary increased by more than 50% over an eighteen-month period, and before I knew it, I was "middle class"). She never stated her approval of my having a career, mind you. She simply stopped griping because she liked that we had money and did not have to scrimp and save anymore. She lucked out too, I guess. But she has never expressed gratitude or appreciation for it.