generational gasp

I talked to my mother on Skype yesterday morning.  I hadn't talked to my parents in a little while, as it has been the tendency recently.  I don't necessarily feel like it... or rather, I kind of dread it.
A friend told me I can help change the tone of our interactions by changing my expectations.  If I expect to feel the need to justify and defend myself, then I will create that very situation.  Instead I could imagine what I would want from a conversation with my mother: she is excited for me to go to Europe, she's inspired by my courage and relates with my spiritual take on life.
It's never pleasant to have your hopes crushed, so I didn't dare expecting that much.  I turned on the video ready to any possible turn of events.  She was there, in Quebec, looking so much like me.
Our conversation turned out the same way it usually does.  "Yes mom, I know... well... I do have enough funds to get there and then live decently for about a month... But that's part of the point, I'm going to be forced to put myself out there and busk for money."  I've always been very honest with my parents.  Perhaps that's part of the issue.  Perhaps I should protect them a bit more.  But I wouldn't know how, that's just how I am.  "I don't know what I'll do after mom, I already told you."  She gives me the subtle guilt trip "Your father and I were watching these street performers at the Summer Festival and we said 'Harvey and Eve could just as well come and perform here."  But mom, that's not the point.  I want to go experience European culture.  I'm not doing this to get further from you, regardless of what you think.  I'm just doing it because I have an incredible opportunity.  I wish you could see that.  But instead, I see worry and sadness on your face.  And I feel yucky.
My therapist says that we cannot expect our parents to understand the choices we make.  They grew up at a different time, in different circumstances.  They too probably worried their parents, when they left the farm and went to the city.  Come to think of it, there has been more drastic gaps between generations before.  I can barely imagine the clash that occurred when the hippy movement stirred the country.  Or when the folks who had fought so hard for communism saw their children abandon the ship and embrace capitalism.  Or when the children of aristocrats became anarchists and socialists.  Or when explorers took the seas and settled in America, leaving their ancestors behind.  You get the picture.  This is nothing new.
So I wonder, is this what parenting is all about?  You give twenty years of your existence to your kids, you labor and you sacrifice your own desires in order to raise them well, and one day, they "betray" you?  I wish our culture talked of the spiritual undercurrents of this journey.  It's not easy for us kids to "betray" those who gave us life.  But we cannot quiet our hearts and our visions, we cannot adhere to the belief that "owing" them means following in their exact foot steps.  And they, they need to feel validated in that experience.  It must be so difficult and so sad for loving and dedicated parents.  It is a great lesson of surrender.
I wish my mom would openly surrender a bit more.
I wish she expressed more enthusiasm, instead of contaminating me with her grief.
I'm working with it.