It didn’t matter to my mother, bless her heart, if I wanted to be a musician, I should be a policeman. If I wanted to be a pastor, I should be a dentist. If I wanted to be a dentist, I should be a astronaut. That’s one way of doing it.
My father on other hand had a simple, never changing message, “Its not work if you don’t get your hands dirty.” Those were the two sorts of messages I heard in my family. We tried to do it differently with our kids:
We’ve tried to be encouraging of our children no matter what their passion. When they wanted musical instruments, they not only got instruments, but lessons. When they were into soccer, we devoted Saturday mornings and sometimes afternoons to that sport. When snakes were in vogue, we had snakes in the house and went to “herp” shows. I don’t think there is a pet we didn’t have at some point in time.
My wife and I send a similar message when it comes to the kid’s careers. First off, we take the pressure off telling our kids that they are probably not going to finish in their first college major let alone find a job in whatever they graduate in. Neither of us ever worked in the field of our college majors.
So far we have only one post college child and she happens to have gone directly into her chosen field. Maybe precisely because we told her not to worry about it? Who knows? Our second child, our eldest son, started out a psychology major, graduated with an English degree and then promptly went back to another college for a music business degree.
Another thing we tell them is to follow their passions instead of chasing the ever present dollar. Up till now that philosophy has us with one of our babies earning a great living albeit contract to contract. Unlike many children who flounder for a period after graduating, she was already was working jobs in her field before graduation.
Even she understands that waitressing might be unavoidable every now and then in her chosen career. We try to tell our brood that its all right to do something “artistic” or whatever. Just don’t ever count on a house in the suburbs or a new car. In other words, we tell them they can do anything they want to do. But we also tell them they can’t have it all.
Is it a better way to do it than my parents did? I guess time will tell. But so far, it seems like it. Our kids seem mostly happy when it comes to career paths.
