Indeed. I went my own way, but not because I have any particular disdain for for my parents’ occupation.
My grandfather started a company in a specialized trade. My father carried it on. My father was always a bit resentful of this, he felt he was ‘forced’ into it. Because of this my father pushed rather hard to make myself and my siblings pursue other careers. I worked for him as a child, worked in a related business in highschool, did retail management after HS, worked in a few different trades. When my father started falling behind due to lack of skilled people, he reluctantly let me work for him again, it was somewhat hostile at times. After he passed away I took over the business. I like what I do, I had oportunity to try other things and was able to determine what I’d be happy doing.
Followed in their (well, my dad’s moreso) footsteps, it made sense.
He owns a small mom and pop store. Growing up I rarely saw him, he worked a tremendous amount of hours. Gone before I woke up, home after I went to bed. I’d see him on Wednesdays when he’d stop home for dinner. In summer my mom would pack up the kids, pick up grandma (his mom) and we’d go down to the store for lunch. There was a lot of family there. His dad, his sister, some of my mom’s sisters, some cousins. Family birthday parties were often there just because so much of my family was already there and many of the long time employees were (and still are) practically family. The ones that don’t work there anymore I still keep in close contact with.
Anyways, when I was little, I’d always ask if I could go to work with him and he’d usually tell me that he was leaving way too early. Sometimes, however, he’d tell me that if I could be ready to go by 5 (or 4 or 3), I could come with him…I’d sleep in my clothes so the second I heard him moving around the house, I’d be at the door. I loved those days. Driving there in the dark. Helping the big kids get the store ready. It really was my calling, even in grade school, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
When I turned 12, I was able to work there legally and started putting in real hours, on the payroll, on the weekends. When I turned 16, I’d drive down there after school. In college, I’d drive into town after the school day was done and work into the night doing handyman type stuff and work normal hours on a lot of weekends. After college I went back to normal hours.
It’s been 23 years, I’m not going anywhere and luckily I still like working there.
And this store is a direct spin off of my grandfather’s business. My dad will tell stories about sleeping in his clothes so he could be ready to go as soon as his dad was moving around at 4am because he wanted to go to work with him as well. This business is in our blood.
I essentially followed in my stepfather’s footsteps. So, I chose the “related but not identical career” option as coming closest to convey get the flavor of my situation.
Fascinating story? What kind of business.
Me, my parents were both 1950’s collage grads. My father followed his calling, solidified in WW2 pacific theater and Korea battle, to become a minister. My mother was a SAHM who would have been much happier out working on something, anything.
Me, I majored in Chinese and left bumfuck America behind to find life, love, adventure and a career in megacities of Asia. I think I came out ahead…
Produce. In fact, in Milwaukee, most of us in produce are in ‘the family business’. Not just the stores, but even the wholesalers and distributors. Many of them are “____ & Sons” or " ____ Brothers" etc or at least have some kind of tagline saying how many generations deep the business runs. My dad started this store, it’s a spin off of my grandfather’s wholesale route (and store before that), which started from his father’s business. He (my great grandfather) was an off the boat Sicilian*.
There’s pictures of me in the backroom in a playpen or even just a makeshift playpen made out of boxes and and blanket. They kept toys there to keep me occupied. Now, the same thing is going on with my daughter. She loves coming to work with me, we kept a playpen there when she was little, she had toys there when she was younger. The pictures of me growing up there are pretty much the same as the pictures of her growing up there.
*As I reread this I realized that that line doesn’t mean much to most people. Most of the produce people, at least around here are Italian/Sicilian.
My dad worked as a foreman on the docks of an oil refinery; my mom left school at age 14 in 1946 and spent two years in business college training to be a telephone operator.
Sister - never worked; trapped a guy into marrying her when she was 17 (she’s now 65, and he’s had to come out of retirement to go back to work FT to support her spending habits)
Brother 1 - worked as a truck driver and auto restorer
Brother 2 - ostensibly a carpenter contractor, mostly just a scam artist and petty thief.
Me - senior lecturer at a university (equiv. to associate professor with tenure in the US).
So, not only has my career path been completely different from my parents’, it is completely different from siblings’.
A lot more than either of them would believe.
By the time I found out Mom had a teaching degree I’d already made my mind on wanting to be a teacher: “NO! Teachers are all STUPID!” (Picture foot-stomping little brunette with short curls). The additional knowledge was more wood for that particular fire.
Dad was an accountant by training, but the time when I saw him at his best was when he worked as a factory’s Production Manager, a position which would normally be held by an engineer. The challenges, both having them and climbing over them, brought him alive like I’ve only seen him in pictures from when he was in his teens. I ended up in Chemical Engineering because that was the one kind of engineering my parents were willing to accept and pay for.
I didn’t intend for the choice of “never occurred to either of them” to be disdain or rejection but merely the choice of something that they wouldn’t have considered. For example, when I first joined the Navy, my mom made some comment to the effect that the only reason women went into the military was to get a man or to get a woman.
She was a product of her generation and I am a product of mine.
And neither of my parents have (had) any clue as to what engineers do, besides drive trains. Not a dig at them, just the way things are.
Oops, my bad. My eyes skipped right over that choice and zoned in on the “No way” one. Sorry about that FCM. You did have all the bases covered.
My father worked in accounting and finance in the supermarket industry. I thought growing up that this was boring field piled on top of a boring industry.
I was hell-bent on being a Wall Street big shot. Washed out in six months. Went into IT and Telecoms for a decade. Company I worked for collapsed. Was offered a job at my Dad’s company, just before he retired. For a while I actually ran the specific technical department he used to work in.
My mother was a bookkeeper in various nonprofits for 30+ years, but started life as a teacher. One of my sisters owns an accounting services firm that only serves nonprofits. The other sister is a teacher.
My parents were passionate about their work, sterile as it seemed to us as kids. But it must have rubbed off. My co-workers say the same things about me as my father’s say about him. Whatever my talents, I give 100% every day, and am obsessed with doing things right.
Thinking of my sibs:
Sister - a series of minimum or near-minimum wage jobs in retail or service industries. She paid her bills and seemed to be happy, so it worked.
Brother - CPA and CFO for several companies who rose to be (now) President and CEO of his current company, much pursued by headhunters. His career is the most like Dad’s, tho Dad only made it to VP.
Sister - started out working with Dad and stayed mainly in that type of business. 40-ish years later, she’s a manager.
Sister - short stint as vet’s assistant, several stints as waitress, very brief stint of office work, 30+ years as a bartender.
And looking at the next generation - both my husband and I are engineers and our daughter is a science teacher. Kinda, sorta in the same neighborhood…
My father was very smart, but his mother was desperately poor and there was no way he could go to college, even free in New York. His family was in the restaurant business and he worked there before he went into the army. When he came out he joined the UN and worked his way up from security guard to running a big division.
I got interested in computers something not really a career when he started.
The great thing was that when I was majoring in CS at MIT he told me I should take some business classes, just so I’d have something to fall back on.
My parents were both blue collar workers and immigrants and would have been disappointed if I followed along in their line of work. That said, my father’s hobbyist interest in photography must have rubbed off on me, as that’s what I ended up doing. I was expected to go more in the STEM path (before I even heard of it as a term), but I ended up taking a left turn at Albuquerque somewhere in my college career and ended up here.
My parents were also immigrants, dad was managing a liquor store when he died, mom was a secretary when she retired. My brother and I both ended up in professional careers in the sciences, so no, not any connectivity there.
Mines aren’t what they were when Dad was a Breaker Boy, declaring war on Japan before the US did was his thing, and the mills are all basically a thing of the past so I sort of carved my own path. He lived to see a lot of it and while it wouldn’t have been his choice, he did have a certain respect for what I accomplished.
My mom’s a (retired) elementary school teacher who eventually got her National Boards and then her AIG (Academically/Intellectually Gifted) certification and taught AIG. I’m an elementary school teacher who got my National Boards and then my AIG certification and hopes eventually to teach AIG. But she got her master’s before starting to teach, whereas I don’t have my master’s at all, so I guess we’re pretty different.
My dad’s a family physician. I can barely watch people getting shots in movies, and I had to back out of an epi-Pen training because the needle-less prop was about to make me pass out. Not so much in my dad’s footsteps.
I grew up on sea stories. My dad sailed for over 15 years as a marine engineer. when he got married he came ashore and worked as an operating engineer. As a kid I was able to go into the engine rooms of the plants where he worked. (Ice and cold storage plants). I love machinery, the smell, sound, sight, and feel.
In 6th grade I picked The California Maritime Academy (CMA) or the US Maritime Academy as the college I wanted to go to. I ended up graduating from CMA. Went to sea for a short time. I am now retired after a career of 42 years as a operating engineer.
I am just an Old Greasy Snipe, like my dad, and his dad before him.
Dad started his adult life as a naval aviator, but before I was born he had transitioned to a civilian career utilizing his mechanical engineering degree. When I was growing up, it seemed to me that he knew something about everything and could do damn near anything. He answered my questions about how planes fly, how things are made, and how businesses work; and I watched as he kept the family cars running, designed and built beautiful home improvements/additions, managed the family nest egg to assure financial security for all of us and a very comfortable retirement for them, and so much more. I wanted to be as capable as he was, so I majored in mechanical engineering like he did (except I went all the way to a Ph.D.).
Now that I’m out in the real world, I know engineers who have no idea how to change the oil in their car, can’t tell the difference between a Phillips and slotted screwdriver, and know very little of the world outside of their narrow discipline. Turns out an ME degree isn’t the thing that made my dad so broad; it’s just who he is. Likewise my ME degrees aren’t the thing that made me what I am; it’s just that I’m my father’s son, ya know?
My dad was a lifelong auto mechanic. My mom was, at various times, a secretary, a SAHM, a pre-school director and a kindergarten parapro. I ended up as a data analyst/project manager/people manager. Pretty different!