Carrer Choices for our children

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Me and My Husband Do not agree on this Issue. So I am interested in knowing what other people think.

We come from a culture where APrents guide almost choose your career. If it was not for my dad I would have been a liberal arts, languages graduate but he believed in having options and almost made me take medicine saying " You could always study literature with a MD degree but studying medicine with a literature degree would be harder. True but I think It killed my creative side a bit. Now I would want to give my kids more freedom to choose but my husband would not agree. He knows what he wants My 8year old son to do ( Would kill me if I shared it on A2k).
I want opinions , Observations, experiences !!!!!!

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Although I have high expectations in my daughter's academic performance,
what she ultimately wants to be, will be her choice. Her wish is to become
a veterinarian, and I support that. Of course, she's only 11 now, we'll
see what happens in the future.

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See now that is amature 11year old. I would not have known at 11 what I wanted to do. Looks like you are doing a great Job CJ.

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Now Based on what you said Cj It reminded me of my Dad. HE kind of did it in a tricky way. First he would not let me close options for medical science at the premed stage then when my scores qualified me to get further EH said, " I would leave it upto you I know you wanted to study literature. At taht point it was hard to not make him happy being the first born and an abedient loving daughter. Did that personal sacrifice made me less happy today , very hard to say, I am kind of happy successful and I am readinf a lot these days .I think in a way our parents know us better than we do but then again it is like that PALTROW movie " Sliding doors" .

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I used to work in medical research. Some several year residents came through our labs. One had an advanced degree in English Literature, plus a lot of science courses in his background. He was both a good doc and a good story teller.

It is not only parents who can steer children against their own interests, but the children themselves. I admired my dad and his interests and cottoned onto medical history at a young age. I did have genuine curiosity. Who else reads history of medicine texts at fourteen.... but as much as I get and admire the scientific methodology, it isn't my main interest in life now.

Years later, I figured out that my interests had to do with liberal arts, and, most of all, art and design of may kinds, including urban design, site design, landscape design, and many studio arts. Some of those arts get pretty technical, including some exciting realms of engineering.

You could say I wasted a lot of years, but that time studying biochemistry wasn't entirely a throwaway.

Parents' domination re children's interests seems, to me, quite silly and misinformed; often destructive.

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I think it is o-k to voice an opinion to them - as in you may want to consider not being an art major as there are few jobs or be clear to them on the pros and cons of a particular major or future career. Besides that, I would think you would want your child to choose something that interests them - otherwise, they are likely to be unhappy in their career and most likely unsuccessful.

By the way my younger daughter wants to be a vet too - either that or a princess.

My older one wants to be a singer.

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ossobuco wrote:

Parents' domination re children's interests seems, to me, quite silly and misinformed; often destructive.

I am not trying to play devil's advocate here but I truly believe that as parents we want our children to be better & do better than us. All attempts at redirecting, guiding or helping them choose are part of it.
A first generation immigrant from India with nothing but a Liberal arts degeree my Dad probably wanted meto do better and would often say' I ahave nothing to offer you but a good eucation and my presence. Now his face lights up when he mentions my success as a physician, Mom and wife. I would give him that even if it means a less luxurious lifestyle thanI could have had as a teacher of language arts. Yes, to me that would have been a luxury. But can't we all afford a little less luxury for the sake of our loved ones?

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Can't really speak to your particular situation because of the different cultures... I would no more choose my daughter's profession than I would choose her husband, her car, her clothes, etc.

Many kids change their minds about what they want to be when they grow up. My kids must have had several choices at various points in their lives.

I don't believe everyone is suited for academia (university). My son is finishing his plumbing/gas fitting apprenticeship this year and he loves his work. He's by no means stupid, but he would never have liked university. He just bought a home and he's only 23... how did he do it? His trade paid him to learn. My daughter, on the other hand, worked like a fiend to pay for her schooling, so she was not able to save any money during the four years of education.

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I think parents who know their child's strengths and interests can and should encourage their child to follow those. Anything further is coercion.

13-year-old SonofEva is particularly good in math and science. He is somewhat interested in medical research. I should have him talk to you, Osso. :wink: He also has an aptitude for understanding economics/finance.

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Eva wrote:

I think parents who know their child's strengths and interests can and should encourage their child to follow those. Anything further is coercion.

You are right here too, Eva. My daughter is a talker, she learns languages easy, and we're promoting that with international schooling and additional
languages. Given her talent she should have a definite career in broadcasting Razz

yet, only a 3 hour talk show comes to mind....

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That's a good way of putting it, Eva.

I think that if parents expect to have that kind of influence, they're setting themselves up for disappointment and/ or a problematic relationship with their kids.

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Quote:

I truly believe that as parents we want our children to be better & do better than us. All attempts at redirecting, guiding or helping them choose are part of it.
A first generation immigrant from India with nothing but a Liberal arts degeree my Dad probably wanted meto do better and would often say' I ahave nothing to offer you but a good eucation and my presence. Now his face lights up when he mentions my success as a physician, Mom and wife. I would give him that even if it means a less luxurious lifestyle thanI could have had as a teacher of language arts. Yes, to me that would have been a luxury. But can't we all afford a little less luxury for the sake of our loved ones.

Your father decided your future. You are pleased with your present life--although in other posts you've shown some wistful curiosity for what might-have-been.

In any case, you cooperated with your father and chose to follow his thinking.

Now your husband is announcing that he will chose his son's career. Suppose your son rebels? Suppose instead of being able to say "My Son, the Doctor or My Son, the Lawyer, or My Son, the Indian Chief" in twenty years you'll be saying, "My Son--I wish he were speaking to us."

Many of our posters from India and from the States but of Indian descent speak of their problems being whip-sawed between two cultures.

You chose to live in the States so that your kids could have all the advantages of a Western childhood. Unfortunately, you can't raise a child in the Western World and expect your child to choose a career according to parental wishes.

Yes, you obeyed your father--and you are happy. You were a girl. Your father's decisions/fiats were made in the last millennium. You accepted his plan for your life.

By the time your son is making firm career choices a generation will have gone by and the world will be a very different place. His father will not have the power your father had.

This is the Western World. All you and your husband can do is to raise your son so that he will be equipped to make wise decisions on his own and to ask for parental advice, not detailed directions.

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Mame wrote:

I would no more choose my daughter's profession than I would choose her husband, her car, her clothes, etc.

That was how I grew up - which doesn't mean that my parents always liked what I did ..... more than 40 years ago.

Today, I don't think any parents will really press their children in one and only direction. At least not in a "western culture".

On the other hand, when choosing a specialised type of school for the children ...

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It is worth remembering, too, that projections say today's highschool graduates will have, on average, four different careers in their working lifetime.

(Not jobs...careers!)

The world is changing faster and faster.

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Job-hoppers! Very Happy

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Noddy24 wrote:

Quote:
You chose to live in the States so that your kids could have all the advantages of a Western childhood. Unfortunately, you can't raise a child in the Western World and expect your child to choose a career according to parental wishes.
.

As always Thanks for the insight, a major issue for me is in life is not being able to see anything as absolute black and white.
when you talk about letting them develope their interestrs of course that is the prime responsibility of a parent. Now how do they develope these interests, what are the major influences, TV No, Movies No, Video games No ( By the way I mentioned a middle school in NY where they learn by designing Videogames and he is planning on being a boarder there), Books yes but I better know which ones at this stage, I disapprove of the humor provided by Captain Underpants. Sports Yes. So in a way I still want to be a medium for the developement of these interests.

What bothers us as first generation immigrants is What if our kids got too comfortable and lost the motivation that drove us. To me My kids are my little universe, I would want to give them as much independence to choose but first I would want to give them the tools.

What is interesting and what made me start the post is the contrasting experience me and my Husnband had. For me My parents were always there (May be a little too much) and paid for the best education until I got a scholarship to go to med school. I am the one now wanting my kids to not rely on me. My husband has been on his own since High school worked his way through many Odd jobs to be where he is. I do not think his parents even had the capacity to tell him what to do. He is the one saying I am paying for all of their education. I want my son to be .....

That is what I wanted to know.Do these factors change the way we behave in this regard?

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Luvmy--

You're kids are going to be exposed to a lot of choices--your way, your husband's way and the ways of the Western World.

You are a doctor. Did anyone "teach" you professional conduct? Probably not. You picked it up by observing your professors and your peers.

In the same way your son is going to become westernized to some degree. Right now he is eight years old. You can isolate him from movies and televsion and video games. As he makes friends of his own age and visits at their houses, he's going to be exposed to movies and television and video games. He'll start picking his own books.

He'll be exposed to stories of independent, enterprising American heroes in school. He'll talk to his friends and learn that they are thinking about their career choices without blindly obeying their parents.

Of course you and your husband have been affected by your families' ways of thinking as well as by Indian culture. All the same, your son will not be a carbon copy of either of you but someone uniquely himself.

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This is one of those topics that I feel so strongly about that I can hardly bring myself to get into the conversation. I live in an area where over-achieving parents push their children into specific career paths with degrees from specific schools and map their educational plan out from kindergarten through high school to achieve their desired end.

When our girls were in 8th grade we were required to submit the top three colleges of "their" choice so that the 4-year high school plan could be tailored to those schools. After 6th grade my daughter received an invitation to attend Northwester University's summer ACT enrichment school (6 weeks of academics) so that she could begin her ACT preparations. 6th grade!!!! My neighbors were shocked that I declined the invitation on her behalf. "My god! Don't you realize that that's the way to get her into a Ivy League school?" Um... I can't post my response.

The only nice way to put it is that I am Very opposed to parents mapping out their children's career path and educational plan.

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In principle I agree with you, JPB, but sometimes parents have no choice
but plan ahead of their kids education. We had a waiting list in elementary
school (very small school) and now that my daughter is starting middle school, we again had a waiting list ahead of us which forced us to start
almost a year ahead of schedule, and we probably encounter the same
situation once high school starts.

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Well, CJ, but it seems that YOU planned for just those schools ... .

My sister - and especially my BIL - totally "planned" the life of their three children, by dictating what kind of school (and college) they had to go to.

So the older two already had get some different, further education by going to part time colleges and the distant university.
Which doesn't change their kind of job though.

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