Family not reeeeeeally aboard

snapdragonfly
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:33:09 +0000

Okay this a bit of a rant.

We just got back from visiting my dad and stepmom for a couple days.
They don’t come right out and directly say “what the heck are you letting her do that for,” but my stepmom did make some remark about doing something (as in getting a degree) “for fun” (as in not of use for anything else.)

Well, yes, we are quite aware that very few people actually make it big on Broadway or anywhere else, but, a lot of people work and support themselves in the field without ever being famous. AND, d does have an alternative and it’s costuming. AND, should that not work out, well, she’ll have a bachelor’s degree which will make her just as competitive for any of those jobs that require a bachelor’s degree in no particular especial area, as anyone else.

To be honest - we all know this - as an actress ages (maybe to some extend the guys too, but especially the girls) parts get harder to get: and everyone, everyone nowadays ends up with two careers over their lifetime, maybe three. People just don’t do the same thing their whole life anymore. So even if she didn’t go into performance she’d probably end up going back for something, some different training, perhaps a master’s in something, at some point mid life. Who knows. So what is the difference between going back after having acted a while or going back after having done something else? Do they really think it’s possible to go to school and get a degree in something that is guaranteed to not only get them a job right away but keep them in a job over the entire 55 or 60 years of their working life? And even if that were mostly guaranteed, what if they absolutely hate that field, or really have no aptitude?

It’s back to that old “is it an education or is it job training” thing. Of course she needs to be able to do something to support herself. But if that were the only goal she could take one of the vocational courses at community college and in less than two years she could be a paralegal or dental hygienist and be making pretty good money and I do see ads for those jobs all the time. Being a dental hygienist or paralegal is a perfectly respectable and useful thing to be, and there is nothing wrong with going that route, if getting a decent career is the primary goal - but she wants a university education. And it’s not like the option of becoming one of those things or any of the other things you can become with a year or two of vocational training isn’t going to be open to her later in life; it’s not as if she could never DO that just because she’s choosing to go into a college theater program now.

Does getting a BA in business or marketing or communications or speech or any of the very popular liberal arts concentrations that would likely be what she would do, if she didn’t do theatre, really carry THAT much more weight than any other liberal arts concentration for getting a really really REALLY good job anyway? (that’s not rhetorical, I really don’t know, but I have heard that quite often it might not necessarily) I’m sure those are very good all around degrees for any number of entry level positions that could, if the kid has the smarts to rise up and if it’s not a crappy horrible company or one that folds in a few years, end up being successful - but couldn’t one land most of those type jobs with a range of different BA’s, and some of them pretty much any BA, anyway?

Isn’t a super plummy high paying really top notch position going to want an MBA? Is there some shortage of MBA’s out there or something that would render if possible for my daughter snatching an opening away, with a BA in business, from all the MBA candidates out there, if she just said “oh okay” and got a BA in business?

I guess what I am trying to say is they seem to think she’s making a choice between degree in which you can NEVER get ANY job and degree with which you will most certainly get a job if you just have to get that degree, and I don’t see it that way.

But they don’t come right out and say this to us. But I know that my stepmom, at least, does not approve. My dad asked me what she could do other than Broadway and I told him there was regional theater, there were touring companies, there were cruise ships, there were lots of jobs other than Broadway, and that the schools nowadays are really making a concerted effort to get their graduates placed. I also told him she could costume and the line for those jobs is shorter.

Yes, it would be really nice if she decided she was going to become an engineer and take math and engineering. But since she a) doesn’t like math or science all that much and b) isn’t especially good at them, WHY do they think it’s actually some kind of a viable alternative for her that she’s turning up her nose at just for spite? You know if she decided to go into engineering she WOULD FLUNK out of college, I have no doubt she’d either flat out flunk or she’d struggle along barely making C’s, and even if she did graduate, and managed to land a job, it’s real likely she’d get fired.

She does not. have. that. aptitude.

I know that America is all about the MATHMATHMATHMATH omgMATH these days, and that’s where everybody is putting their focus - our local school system slapped together a math and engineering preschool through 6th grade campus and follows them around from 5th grade on saying “You wanna do math? Math? Math anyone? Math? You guys wanna go into math, right? Math and Engineering? Right?”

It’s not an option for her. This is what she wants to do. It seems like stepmom has the attitude that it’s frivolous and there is something immoral about enjoying earning your college degree. She’s just going to be paying a bunch of money so she can play around.

What if I said “look, it’s a bad idea and you are going to do something SENSIBLE” and she got a degree in communications, and ended up with an okay life but not something she really loved that much or maybe even hated and was bored to death with, or maybe even failed rather miserably, financially speaking, anyway, and wondered all her life what would have happened if she’d given it a shot, and it would have been because someone with the power over her to do so, flat out told her “NO, you cannot pursue this dream.” If I had a crystal ball and could absolutely know for an unquestionable fact, that pursuing theater would bring her misery and heartache and failure and unhappiness and that getting a BA in communication would bring her security and fulfillment and happiness and success, then of course I’d tell her to pick the BA in communication. But I don’t know either of those things and neither does anyone else.

If she falls flat on her face in theater she’ll brush herself off and go on to something else. She knows the odds. She knows she needs to be looking for what she wants to do if she doesn’t become the next Laura Bell Bundy.

Why can’t they have a little faith in her?

Am I doing her a disservice by not trying every minute of the day to dissuade her from trying this? I am asking this of the wrong audience, aren’t I? lol.

BTW stepmother never finished college at all and she had various clerk and retail jobs until she became a real estate broker with my dad, and they have had pretty good financial success but she HATES her job. How is that any more a recipe for happiness than getting an education in something you love and then just seeing where it takes you?

How do you all handle the disapproval of family members who would much prefer your child to get a degree in something “they can use”? (and I not only have read but have printed out the 25 skills…as good as it is, not a big enough weapon to shoot down some people’s wall of skepticism.)