family life

It didn’t matter to my mom, bless her heart, if I wanted to be a musician, I should be a teacher. If I wanted to be a teacher, I should be a veterinarian. If I wanted to be a veterinarian, I should be a lawyer. That’s one way of doing it. My dad on other hand had a simple, consistent message, “Its not work if you don’t get your hands dirty.” Those were the messages I heard in my family growing up. We tried to do it differently with our kids:

We’ve tried to be supportive of our kids no matter what their interests. 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 soccer. When snakes were in vogue, we had snakes in the house and went to “herp” shows.

So why should it be any different when it comes to the kid’s careers? First off, we take the pressure off telling them that they are unlikely to finish in their first college major let alone find a career in whatever they graduate in. Neither my wife or I ever worked in the field of our college majors. To date we have only one post college child and she happens to have moved directly into her chosen field. Maybe exactly because we told her not to worry about it? Who knows. Our second child, our oldest son, started out a psychology major, graduated with an English degree and then promptly went back to school for music business.

Second, we tell them to follow their passions rather than the almighty dollar. To date that philosophy has us with one child earning a very good living albeit contract to contract. Even she knows that waiting tables might be an inevitability from time to time in her chosen career. We try to tell our kids that its OK 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 and our kids seem generally happy when it comes to career paths.

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