My son the doctor
In our community there was a woman who insisted her son should be a minister. My friends and I never saw it. He was the most unlikely person. He now sells gas.
Parents insist on this kind of labeling. My son will be a doctor, a lawyer, or other professional. Maybe, but not necessarily so. Perhaps being a doctor would be ideal, but a doctor’s secretary once confided to a group of us at a party that she would never be a doctor: “All they do” she said “is spend your time looking in patient’s orifices.” That was not her ideal vocation.
Parents want the best for their children but who is to say what is best? Many, perhaps most, parents subtly or not so subtly pressure their children in one direction or another.
Often parents pressure their kids because they are not happy in their own work situation. They wish they had chosen better. Many people think that if they make lots of money that will make all the difference, but it usually doesn’t. If their child chooses a prestigious career they will have reason to be proud and to brag a bit. In this second-hand way they will feel that they too are a success.
The problem is that such pressure usually does not benefit the child. I know of a whole assortment of people who are doctors, clergy, and engineers, who just go through the motions. They are unhappy. When pushed about their career they usually say all the right things. They feed you the party line but they are primarily waiting for retirement. Some few have thrown the whole thing over and, independent of their other’s wishes, are simply determined to try to find their own path.
What often happened is that they were pressured by a parent to choose an inappropriate career and now, often in midlife, they have to try to find the path they should have taken as a youth. It takes great courage for people to say that they were pressured into a vocation which does not fit them at all. When they launch themselves on the search for their own path it takes even more courage. What is tragic is that they were bullied into the wrong career in the first place.
It is our hope that young people especially will get considerable help in these critical choices from our site.
That is how I see it. What has your experience been?