Have your parents chosen the career that you are in?

No,my dad seemed to think I would’ve made a good Marine though.I loved him for that:)

No – we were left to find our own way career-wise. I worked on a bookmobile right after college and being a reader and a curious person, decided to go for my MLS to become a librarian. Later I did do a long stint in the family business for convenience while my kids were growing up and my Mom was disappointed when I left and went back to librarianship.

no, my parents have not chosen my career at all however my mum did tell me that when she was younger she wanted to study marine biology but didnt because she couldnt swim. That was after I had applied to my course. Dad wanted me to help out in the family business and I worked the odd summer with him for a bit of extra cash but when I told him I was going to uni to study marine biology they both totally backed me. my sister is a journalist and my other sister is at uni studying sociology, we all follow very different career paths to suit us, not our parents. I dont understand when parents push kids into doing something, in the long run most of the time it just seems to make people depressed continually striving for their parents appreciation and acceptance.

When I was 21, my Dad told me to get a job, or he would get me a job at a friend’s mortuary.
I was able to find my career job within a week.
I can’t imagine what working in a mortuary would have been like. I am psychologically damaged already!

No. My mother literally rolled her eyes and said, “Oh god…” when I told her I wanted to be a massage therapist. She keeps asking when I’m going back to culinary school to be a chef, which I absolutely abhorred. That’s her dream. My dad just wants me to be happy.

Absolutely no…actually raised myself. Everything I’ve done has been my call. Believe me, some of them were not good calls. But, as the song says, “I did it my way!”

Nope. I didn’t even choose the career I work in I just sort of fell in to it.

No, it was all up to me.

No. As much as my parents wanted me to do things, they never pushed a career on me.

No my career choices were all my own.

My parents left my sister and me alone because we were girls. They leaned on my brother more; even when he chose his profession himself, they nagged him about certain aspects of his choice. They had a superficial and slanted view of “prestige.”

He finally had to write them a letter in order to get them to listen (an art that they didn’t excel at.)

My sister and I had fulfilling and interesting careers; my father was completely uninterested; my mother did try to make him sit up and take notice, but with no success.

Like parents of any immigrant child, my parents wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer and when I wanted the same, they were happy. Eventually, when I got off the path to becoming a doctor, they still cared that I made money. When they realized I wouldn’t be making money helping people, they left me alone and hoped my husband would make money. When my husband decided to stay at home after being laid off, they gave up on us.

The wanted me to follow other career paths, especially my father. Instead of following what they said, I followed what they were [without realizing it].

My mother was a frustrated artist who gave up her studies in France at the onset of WWII [her mother had a successful commercial art career in NYC before marrying]. I became the next family artist. Eventually, just because of the nature of the beast, I wound up to some degree in the computer world [which was my father’s choice] because art and design went digital.

Nope. My parents never really had anything to do with that for me or my brother. They just said find something we enjoy.

I fought and did everything I could (sucessfully) to not go into the family Real Estate business. Just dreaded the thought of working 7 days a week and nights too! Couldn’t pay me enough to work those crazy hours!

I think most if not all people are affected to some degree by their parents desires as well as others’ who you may interact with during your life, even if we do not realize it.

My parents never blatantly pushed one field over another, but I do remember them saying “science is such an interesting field”, “I hate teaching”, “farming is hard work with low pay”, “you don’t want to end up like that guy cleaning toilets” – stuff like that. And I know I was influenced somehow into believing that blue collar work is not good enough.

They never said “hey, you need to be an engineer” (they still don’t even know what that is), but they had their say in other ways. If it had been entirely up to me and I knew myself better, I probably would have taken up a trade instead of going to college.

It is hard to regret my decisions, though, since my undergrad was paid for entirely by scholarships and my degree got me a job right out of college that paid more than my parents make mid-life.

There are some aspects of it that I do like a lot. I think my first career path was a very narrow miss. I am refining it now, and trying not to let others influence me in the process. It’s a hard sell when what you think you really would love doing tops out in pay at less than what you already make, plus requires additional schooling. Just the other day someone said something to me that made me think twice.

Should also add that how others perceive what you do is a contributing factor to job satisfaction. It may be large or small depending on who you are. So on some level, what others think does matter, even if you can’t admit it or do not realize it.

No but I wish I’d have been given an invitation to the family business. My stepdad didn’t want anything to do with my grandfather’s lucrative real estate brokerage and insisted on doing his own thing over the years and I often wish my grandfather had shown more interest in me to show me more about what he did because at the age I went to work then I’d have really taken advantage of the opportunity and by now had been very secure. What I did get was probably pretty typical in that my parents criticized what their parents had done and pooh pooed any ideas I had for myself while not offering up any ideas that were positive.

No, they offered to send me to college to prepare for any career I wanted, but I ran off with a boy I met at a skating rink and got married instead.