My kids are active participants in local churches. They would never choose to be professional pastors after seeing the best and worst of our experiences.
We did not. Both pharmacists.
DS17 plans to major in physics. DH has a PhD in physics but has always worked in industry.
DH sat DS down recently and explained how long the process is to get an academic position and how little control you have over where you end up working in academia. DS is undeterred, but realizes that industry or going into a CS career after a physics degree might be the easier route.
Never. While I find being a therapist an amazing adventure I also feel that
the money made is not worth the risks involved.
H is a physician and we never ever talked with S or D about becoming one and yet,
after doing many other things, she is now beginning a derm residency. That said, she would not
do primary care as her dad does both because it does not interest her and because he was not
paid well for the majority of his years.
S went his own route and is an entrepreneur. I wanted him to become a dentist.
Funny, my relative will be doing a 3 year derm residency after he does a 1 year internal medicine stint. His sister is trying to do the pre-reqs to apply to med school, after getting her bachelor’s in international business. I think she’ll be an awesome MD.
We sent our kids to the Aviation Challenge in Huntsville (it’s like Space Camp, but military aviation). My oldest son commented, " Well, if I grew up and had to become an Air Force pilot, it wouldn’t be unbearable." Not the spark of interest we were looking for.
We would encourage aviation if they were interested, but they aren’t. There can be plenty of bad times, so you gotta love it.
We encouraged our kids to explore whatever they were interested in. S always loved computers, science, math. He talked with the HS GC and they both agreed that it was just as well to start in engineering, since it’s far easier to transfer out without losing much than trying to get in after starting in something else. He ended up enjoying it a lot and majored in EE because that was what H had always wanted to do but couldn’t handle the tough math and physics. Ironically, H ended up working with and supervising engineers throughout most of his professional career. Most of his co-workers assumed he had an engineering degree like the rest of them and he was paid similarly as well, we believe.
D chose cinema and seems happy with it for now. I think one of the reasons she chose it was because it is a VERY strong school at the U she attended. So far, she hasn’t voiced any regrets.
I strongly discouraged my kids from going into the mental health field. As a therapist working primarily in clinic settings, I find it does not pay well, it emotionally taxing based on the high client volume and requires putting in extra time away from my family to stay on top of the paperwork. Instead I encouraged them in pursuing their own interest. D1 is pursuing a dance BFA, she also exceks in math and science and is considering a double major. D2 is a writing major and doing very well thanks to a great internship she did at the end of her freshmen year.
I grew up with a dad who thought being an engineer was the height of things (he was an EE, finished his degree when he was 40), didn’t do it for the money (worked for a defense contractor, whose pay, well, is never great), and he did encourage us to go that way. My older brother did (EE, but specialist in broadcast and digital broadcast/video technology), my sister went the other way (English major), I kind of split the difference with CS, and ended up in a career that was hybrid of tech and business. The only encouragement I ever gave my son was to try different things and see what he wanted, and I definitely am of the school of thought that college is not meant to be a glorified vocational school, some things there have more direct application to careers than others, and the real purpose to me is about learning about yourself and others, and learning what learning is about. It is funny, when I was going through CS we used to complain that a lot of what we took wasn’t really directly applicable to the real world, that the courses we took on analysis of algorithms and theory of computation for example would have little relevance in the ‘real world’, but they were trying to train computer scientists, not coders or programmers (and yes, folks, it does show, a lot of the people we hire who went to schools overseas, supposedly learning computer science, in fact were going to de facto trade schools, and it shows when you talk to them).
My son never really had to rebel to go down the path to be a music student, we supported him, and part of the reason I did that was because he had the kind of mind that whatever he ended up doing, he could find a path to it, and the things he has learned on his path will do him well no matter what he does, music or not, the skills and ability to learn driven by his own desire will do well for him down the road. Had one smart aleck parent who told me that the music training he was getting was ‘easy’, not ‘academically rigorous’, I told the person to pick up a book of advanced music theory and tell me that;).
We encouraged our kids to find their own pathways.
DH is a pharmacist. He’s encouraged a couple of our kids’ friends who were interested in that path, but our own kids have shown no interest. We’ve encouraged them to do what gives them joy.
One of my kids is pursuing my major (Econ) and it’s a good fit for her. I think she will take it in a different direction than I have, and that’s just fine. I enjoy it when she brings up things she’s studying in conversation.
My other two kids are gifted in areas similarly to other family members–music, engineering. Those family members did not pursue those as career paths, some due to lack of opportunity and one due to a choice to pursue something different. We are happy to give our kid the opportunity that not everyone has, to use their natural talents to pursue what they choose.
An important Montessori principle is “follow the child”. We practiced that and DS found his own passion.
At the same time we may have some influence because we were always STEM enthusiasts in this family. A lot of our outings, tv watching, extra curricular activities, etc were STEM related and now DS is working on his phd in physics. DH and I are in information systems.
Both DH and I are mathematicians (not really in academia, though we are affiliate faculty and teach course at universities). We encouraged our eldest to major in math; he did not end up doing that but was a math major for 2 yrs before switching to more IR/econ. Our middle did not respond well to even mild suggestions in HS or college (‘Grrr, don’t tell me what to do!’). We were somewhat shocked that she focused on math in HS and is now a math major. Our youngest is very much into math. I wouldn’t be surprised if he majors in math and goes on to study that in grad school.
DH was accounting and decision sciences, then went to law school. He was at a boutique DC litigation firm for seven years before a former partner recruited him to join the fed gov’t. I always thought that he was better suited for the subject area expert realm than partnership, anyway. He gets to wear all his hats daily.
I was an IR/journalism major who wound up doing pension administration and employee benefits communication.
S1 went math/theoretical CS and is a SWE doing big data/language development. S2 majored in Russian/IR and is still trying to find his path. He has looked at DH and said that there’s no way he wants to work the kinds of hours that he does.
We never really talked about them following our particular paths, though their individual strengths tend to reflect DH and me.
DH and I are both statisticians, but other than buying her an “I’m statistically significant” t-shirt when she was small, never guided her towards stat although we enjoyed our careers. I only told her I hoped she’d find her passion and get a job with health insurance. After changing majors a couple of times in college, she settled on psychology, and found she liked the Methods courses about halfway through her junior year. She then took enough stat courses, and a couple of prerequisites online during the summer, to meet the requirements for acceptance to a Masters program in the field. After working for a couple of years, she’s now decided she’d like to do statistical programming!
We own a business. My son has less than no interest, he’s a comp sci guy. My daughter however is interested, but we’re making her work elsewhere for a dew years to gain experience and decide if she really wants to do it. She’s worked for us over summers and breaks for years and I had her do every job in the company except for one, sales. She’s shadowing dad this summer. We already have conferences lined up where she’ll be presenting. So she will make and give the presentations, learn how to follow up and attend all sales calls with her dad. Even if she doesn’t want to join us, she’s learned a lot. And her dad knows a lot about sales, which is what she wants to do.