As a non-parent I thought I’d ask this of parents.
I was watching Leave It To Beaver, and Beaver tells the family (at the dinner table of course) that they had a discussion in school and they talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up.
June) And what did you say you wanted to be
Beaver) A writer
June) A writer? Why I think that’s a fine profession
Wally) Yeah you don’t even have to know how to write, they have editors that fix up your spelling and grammar
Ward) Well he’ll still have to study hard to make it as a writer
June) Why did you pick that Beaver?
Beaver) I like to make up stories so I thought I’d get paid for it.
Now I know TV isn’t life, but if I had told my mother I wanted to be a writer, she’d have said “How do you plan on making any money.”
So my question is to all you parents, did you pressure your kids in any direction when it came time to choose what careers or jobs to go for. By pressure I dont’ mean strong arm tactics, it can be a lot of encouraging or pointing out how unlikely they’d ever make much, if any, money
I don’t have kids, but my parents sure did try to influence career choice. My sister wasn’t allowed to go to her first choice school because my father wanted to save the money so the boys could go to the good schools. He also refused to pay for her college unless she was a business major so she could be a secretary. I was told to be an engineer. My brother was a truck driver, I’m a foreign aid worker living as far away from home as I can and still be on the same planet and my sister is a systems analyst (make of that what you will).
I’m not old enough to have kids with careers, but my parents were extremely hands-off with me and my siblings. They encouraged us to go to college, but beyond that they didn’t meddle at all. I guess I was lucky. My wife’s parents didn’t talk to her for a month when she changed her mind about becoming a doctor. I just don’t understand that kind of parenting, really. I mean, as long as the kids can support themselves and are happy, why would you care about what they do?
My parents were happy with me doing whatever I wanted, as long as I was happy. They did want us to go to college, and I and my brothers did. With my kids I encourage them to do what makes them happy as well, hopefully they can make a career out of it.
My parents told me that they wouldn’t pay for college unless it was something valuable, like pre-med or something. My first love has always been English but they told me that they wouldn’t pay for it because it was worthless. I also liked architecture so I tried for that. It didn’t work out, so I tried for something else that they also thought was valuable. That didn’t work out, so I switched to English and graduated with a 3.4, which just reflects how poorly I did at the first two subjects because I got nearly straight As after switching.
After I graduated with that degree it took a while to find a job. I got shit from everyone, especially my father, about not having the worthwhile degree he wanted. I STILL get shit from everyone about having an arts degree even though it was really difficult and a lot of work! Even though I went back and got my law degree, I still get crap about having an English undergrad!
I like writing and I have three stories (which will probably be full novels when finished) that I’m working on right now, but I doubt any of them will see the light of day. No one is interested in reading them and I hate showing them to people because of how tangled up I feel about having such a worthless undergrad and how valueless everyone has told me my writing is. I joined a writing club once and they thought I was brilliant, but I didn’t trust that and only went a couple of times.
Now I tell people I’m a lawyer and they’re so impressed, and my father’s busting with pride, but let me tell you, being in law school wasn’t less work than reading a couple of books a week and writing at least one ten page paper a week and being creative at the same time, like I did to get my English degree. All the time I wasted before doing what I wanted to in the first place…!
Anyway, yes my parents did pressure me. I caved, but that wasn’t smart of me. People really should follow their passions because otherwise they’re just going through the motions and they are going to end up with lacklustre performances.
Well, I kinda felt a pressure to go into music, as everyone always says I’m so talented. That’s probably why I ended up picking it as a college major. But that wasn’t for me.
But nothing like what y’all describe. It’s usually me who’s worried about finding something I want to do that will actually make money.
The only pressure we meant to put on our daughter was to graduate college and become a self-supporting, contributing member of society. Since my husband and I are both engineers, we pointed out to her that she could be an engineer also, and for some reason, she took that as a mandate. I didn’t realize that till one day when she was in high school, we were talking and she told me she didn’t want to study engineering.
I was upset that I’d put that on her without intending to. But we caught it in time and she went on to get her elementary education degree. Today, she’s teaching science in the 5th grade and loving it. Her kids love her, the rest of her team loves her, and there’s no doubt that she made the right choice.
As for my folks, they expected me to get a respectable “female” job - something clerical - then get married and raise a brood. Mom was a bit upset when I enlisted in the Navy, and neither of them ever understood what I did/do as an engineer. But that’s fine. I’ve done well for myself and I’ve enjoyed my career choices. I also intend to enjoy my impending retirement…
My husband and I both pressured our daughter to make good grades. We also emphasized that it’s possible to work in one field and pursue one’s real love as a hobby, if one’s real love is something that won’t bring in big bucks. I encouraged Lisa to take French because she enjoyed it. She’s gone on to teach herself Japanese and is now studying a couple of other languages on her own. She makes her money as a multi-discipline engineer, though.
I did tell her I had reservations about taking JROTC as an alternative to PE in high school. As it turns out, she enjoyed it, and was able to learn several skills in it. However, she decided that being in the military was not nearly as much fun as being a military dependent, so she decided against the military as a career.
No pressure from my parents, other than the expectation I would go to college.
The only pressure or career guidance I remember came from my brother and my grandpa, of all people. Since at 15 I was still dead-set on becoming a vet, brother arranged for a friend of his (recent vet grad) to let me work with him as a volunteer and shadow him in his clinic. I think the initial goal (for my bro) was to maybe discourage me. Instead, I ended up liking it even more. Bro’s friend and I are now colleagues, and he has helped me out quite a lot throughout these years.
Grandpa, OTOH, just kept giving me science-related gifts since I was a toddler. Puzzles (of anatomic parts), books about anatomy, medicine, biology, life sciences, etc. I think he was determined on making at least ONE of his grandkids interested in sciences. He suceeded.
Pressure, no. I did try to expose him to various professions in order to get the mental gears going, and tried my best to encourage him in whatever he took a fancy to.
When VunderKind was late elementary and middle school age, he became quite enamored with comic book art. I tried to get him to consider cartooning or technical illustration. He lost interest in that.
We got involved in robotics, and he took a fancy to electronics. That kind of stuck, and he started college in Electrical Engineering Technology. Good, although I tried to talk him into the engineering side unsuccessfully.
Then, I took him on an ambulance ride-along, and he decided he wanted to switch to Biomedical ET. Similar to EET, but aimed at medical instrumentation. He’ll graduate next year.
Just yesterday, my three year old asked if, when he gets big, he could be “one of those guys that picks up trash and lives at jail.” I’m thinking about applying some subtle negative pressure to that career choice.
The only pressure my parents put on me was that in order for them to pay for college I had to live at home. It was a given that I would be attending college and it was pretty much a given that I would study English, Music, and/or Education. Which I did. Which bears no relevance to what I do now.
TheKid is stuck between two ‘dream’ jobs - coroner or meteorologist. Personally, I’d prefer meteorologist. Less dead. I’ve contacted our coroner’s office to see if they allow field trips, was told no. She’s had long conversations with my sister, who, as a police reserve, has had to bodysit floaters, help find bits o’body struck by a train, and bodysit people who have been dead for a bit. TheKid found it incredibly cool. sigh
For me, while I do support her in whatever she chooses to be when she grows up, I have to figure out how to afford it. I stress strongly to get her grades up and keep them up, as she’ll have to rely on assistance/scholarships/grants for funding. Yes, I presume she will go to college.
I would too. Also, I’d discourage my kids from the sex trade.
When my son was that age, he wanted to be a police officer. One day he said he didn’t want to do that anymore. I asked why. “Police officers get shot at.” Seemed sensible. He now wants to be a baseball player or a rock star - he is eleven. We just tell him to have a backup plan. His backup plan is to be a “successful businessman” and that’s generic and useful enough that I think it will be fine.
Elysian I just want to say I’m sorry that happened to you. Please reconsider going back to the creative writing group, or submitting your work for publication. You might be pleasantly surprised. Don’t give up on your dream; life is too short to live it for someone else. You might even find a way to combine law with writing; look at John Grisham. I’d love to trade places with you; my dream was to be a legal reporter. I love the law but don’t have any interest in practicing it. I’d rather write about other people doing it.
Anyway, a virtual smack upside the head to your dad. He should be proud of who you are.
I don’t have any kids, so I can’t speak as a parent… but I can speak the child of parents who did pressure me (and my sister, to a lesser degree) into careers they felt were “suitable”.
The funny part is that my mother swears up and down that they never put any pressure on me, and that they were totally hands-off about my choice of program. I suppose they were, in a sense… if “you can be anything you want to be, so long as we approve of it” counts as letting me choose. :rolleyes:
I know they did it out of love and good intentions, and not out of some malicious need to control everything I did like some Stepford daughter - they knew I was setting myself up for a hard road if I followed my dreams (costume designers aren’t known for getting steady paycheques, after all). They believe that creative activities should be hobbies that you do in your spare time, and that a career should be prestigious, intellectual and lucrative.
Still, there’s still a small part of me that wonders how things might have turned out if I’d stood up to them at eighteen, rather than doing it three years and one unwanted university degree later. Not to say that I’m unhappy, mind you… but my career is just something I do between 9 and 5. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a job that is fulfilling in and of itself, rather than a way of paying the bills and financing the activities that do make me happy.
My kid isn’t old enough to have a career yet. But… My mom didn’t care what I did. As long as I settled down, didn’t get too much education (anything beyond college) and stopped working when I had babies, of course. She wasn’t too pleased when I pursued my Masters degree.
My parents didn’t push in any certain direction, but I had a tutor-employee years ago who was attending UCLA because his Tawainese immigrant parents’ response to admission to Harvey Mudd (yes, that’s a real college, and harder to get into than UCLA, because it’s much smaller) was “Never heard of it. We can’t be telling the relatives in Taiwan that you’re going to some weirdo college like that.”
I also had a student a couple years ago who literally would not get out paper. She didn’t manage to pass chemistry, as you might imagine. The story told to me was that the extremely conservative Morman dad had let it be known that he didn’t see the point in college for girls, who weren’t going to use it anyway. Her older sister had been allowed to go to the local junior college, but this girl had given up entirely. I’m not sure if she’ll manage to graduate high school.
My parents told me to go to college and get a job. That was about it. My best friend decided he was going to be an engineer so I followed him.
As for my kids I told them I would pay for any degree but I strongly discouraged them to not get what I thought were"non-working" degrees…ie degrees with less job demand.
My oldest (son) said he didn’t know what he wanted to be. I suggested that he start out pointed at engineering. All of the pre-reqs in the first two years could usually transfer to other degrees so that would buy him some time to consider other choices. He did what I suggested and developed an interest in engineering. He graduated with a BSME last fall.
My two daughters have both discovered the wonderful scholarships that are designed to encourage girls to move towards engineering. They too had plans to do the two year test but both have since made strong commitments to engineering.
So I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by their choices. On one hand they may be showing respect for dear old dad by valuing his profession.
On the other hand they may have made their choices based on the fact that engineering demand is holding up well despite the economy (they want jobs) and if a chump like dad can do it how hard can it be?
In any case I’m considering starting my own engineering firm - Bubbadog and pup and pup and pup
Bro’s friend and I are now colleagues, and he has helped me out quite a lot throughout these years.