AIBU to try to steer my DS into a well paid career against his dreams

But who will be there to pick up the pieces when the DS is struggling to make ends meet and has to look at the prices on the menus before he orders something?

My parents were great, but wanted me to go to Uni and become a teacher.
I could have done this, my exam results were good, but I didn't want to do it.
My dream was to go to catering college and become a chef.
They realised it would be a mistake and fully supported me which led to a great 43 year career as a University chef ironically 😂.

Banking and finance are probably some of the most boring jobs I could imagine, for someone who is acreative like your son who wants to get into theatre, you're pushing him into 50+ years of drudgery and misery.

Actual analytical tasks will not be replaced by AI. Lawyers have used AI and have found bogus nonsensical case references. Deloitte had to refund a client as they did a whole project just using chatgpt. Things will be fine

Sorry, I haven't read every reply, but one things really sticks out.
You were miserable and took a step back, your wife is still doing long hours, but you still want to force your son into an awful lifestyle.
Strikes me you sort of feel a bit jealous and want him to suffer !You had to go through it and he should too.
I just hope he has the strength to follow his dreams not yours.
Please let him live HIS life.

He’d get so much more happiness from choosing what he wants to do, my oldest is similar and I’m not steering her in any direction. My parents steered me and I wasn’t academic at all, I did terribly at uni but somehow have a good career in HR earning good money but do I love it? no. And that is a shame. I’m good at it though and I’m very people centric which means I’ve worked for some lovely companies who fit with that too.

If I could actually choose what my oldest did theatre vs banking then it would be theatre all the way.

He has a solid background and will hopefully get a good degree. He won’t lose his brain just because he will take a year or two out to enjoy his passion

Please don't do this. As someone who suffered similar parental pressure i can assure you it won't end well for any of you.
Your dreams are not his. Your path to a happy fulfilled life are not his. Despite what some people seem to think, making money is not the only way to be sucessful and happy in life.
But being pressured into a career path which doesn't suit you is a sure way to unhappiness.

I went into finance and (a) made a very comfortable living and (b) hated every minute of it.

Thankfully, I never had any "dreams" I wanted to pursue other than making a living.

To have given up on something I really wanted to do would have been hell on earth,

Let him do what he wants.

This made me smile. There is probably a difference though between generational wealth and parents who have a good nest egg! If all your kids followed their hearts you'd have to be extremely wealthy to have enough money to give each child a flat deposit, help with nursery fees etc and maintain your own comfortable standard of retirement.

I have a stupidly wealthy client, quite possibly a billionaire. At lunch one day he told us his four kids got their housing, education and car paid. That was it. No credit card.

Now granted a flash two bedder in an expensive part of the city and a mini paid off, no student plenty!

But I kinda liked his style - his kids want a holiday, new phone, fancy bag they have to find a job that pays them enough for the lifestyle they want. They run their own households (groceries, utilities).

Not RTWT, but...taking a show to the Fringe and doing the directing, organising the logistics, dealing with a venue that was possibly constructed hundreds of years ago and isn't up to modern specifications etc will be a wonderful opportunity for your DS, drawing on all his talent and enthusiasm for what theatre involves. If it's a big enough project, it might be enough for him to decide if theatre is really what he wants. If it is and things work out, great. If not, at least his relationship with you won't become enmeshed in his career to the detriment of both. The world already contains too many middle-aged people who detest their careers in law or finance and resent their parents for pushing them in that direction back in the day, but now have mortgages, children, car finance...do you really want to risk this wretched scenario, for your beloved DS or yourself?

As pps have said, the AI cat is out of the bag and we still don't know what impact it will have on a wide range of sectors. It may be that creative jobs are no more vulnerable (if no less) than any other. All the best to your DS and to you.

The daughter of a neighbour wants to do music in univesity - she's never had formal music classes, likes to sing and is self taught on guitar. She, and her mum, think that if she has a music performance degree, she's become a successful singer.

I think they're going to spend a fortune on college for her daughter- if she gets in anywhere without any formal grades in an instrument - and their expectations won't be met.

Sometimes the grown ups have to talk sense to kids.

Sorry, wrong thread

Posted on wrong thread

I think he should do the fringe next summer - it'll be an amazing experience, but will also hopefully help him to see how difficult it is to make a living in the arts.

Some PPs have said how the arts/entertainment sector is a big part of the UK economy - I agree that it is, but only the top 5% or so are making a good living out of it. It's a labour of love/vocation which means people will work for peanuts.

I would definately encourage him to get a more stable job when he graduates. I'd love to have been a set designer, but I strongly doubt that I'd own my own home now if I was.

He’s a bloody adult and you shouldn’t be pushing him to do anything.

His career, his interests, his life. Not yours.

I was very academic too - great A-levels, 1st class degree, etc. On paper, I was absolutely someone who could have been applying for placements with top consultancies etc. When I got my degree results, I remember lots of people telling me I should be looking at their graduate placement programmes etc.

However, I would frankly rather have poked my own eyes out with a stick. Thirty years later, I would still rather poke my eyes with a stick than work at (eg) a consulting firm or an investment bank or corporate law.

If it helps - directing and producing a fringe show is an independent project that entails working out budgets, working as a team, being resourceful, planning and logistics, marketing, thinking on your feet, creativity and management, all of which are excellent things to be able to talk about at a job interview. I’ve interviewed job candidates who have done things like this, and without exception, I’ve always found them more impressive and memorable than candidates who did a corporate internship when it comes to the usual interview questions about giving examples of times when they’ve solved a problem, managed conflict, been self-motivated etc.

Well, yes, exactly! You can give them more freedom than you had, and the confidence to know there’s a cushion if everything goes tits up.

I thought one of the luxuries of being rich was the possibility for your kids to become creatives instead of corporate drones.

It doesn't even sound like you enjoyed your job in the end, and your wife is still working late most days. Is this really what you want for your son?
There are so many interesting careers at there these days, its seems a shame to push him in to something he doesn't want.
Perhapes him being brought up by nannies and not seeing his Mum until late a night as taught him that his isn't what he wants.

OP a few further thoughts from me.

AI is not taking over corporate law, I promise you. It will decimate routine BAU legal work (and we are using it to do so!) so I wouldn't be recommending he try to get into conveyancing for example, but if you want him to have a well paid career you wouldn't be looking at those disciplines anyway.

Why not broker a half way approach with him. He gets on to a grad program in a big firm and does as much of his hobbies as he likes. He's not going to survive long beyond training if he's dropping the team in it at 6pm twice a week to do rehearsals and never available at weekends but so be it. He'll have great work experience and plenty to pay his bills and if he's still keen on theatre after his training (and has had a taste of living real life on a salary - rent, council tax, bills, commuting) and still wants to live on a quarter/third of the salary while pursuing his dream then he'll only be 25 (ISH?) fair play to him.

I actually really enjoyed law at uni, and my training, but in the run up my attitude was always "if I can break into this I can pretty much break into anything I put my mind to* and it's easier to move down than up".

(* Yes, not medicine or astrophysics, we all have our limits, but hopefully you get the point! )

For what it's worth I also really enjoy my killer job. I really don't think there's anything I'd rather do, although I look forward to retirement as a dog walker 😜)

My friend’s family are still furious that she gave up her law career at 28. She hated it. They wanted a lawyer daughter.
Dbro is an architect who quit at 30 and is now in a job he loves.
Another good friend was an accountant at a BIG 4, gave that up in their late 20s hated it… brother of a colleague was on the way to being a tennis champ, massive family sacrifices. Turned round at the airport on the way to the USA for a coveted scholarship he’d won and told parents he hated tennis and wasn’t going. MASSIVE family rift.

They all had ONE thing in common - pushed into careers they didn’t really want by parents and expectation because they were smart or talented or whatever.

Those industries are going to be decimated by AI anyway. Theatre? Directing? Production? Not so much.

He’s an adult - get your hands off his life. Being a wanker banker isn’t for everyone, and your creative child is almost certainly going to find the whole industry awful. Because it is. There’s a chance he’ll never get to the point of making ‘good’ money anyway before dropping out.

He will.

Most people are oblivious as the impact A.I is going to have on the economy. Your average Law Firm is where Blockbuster was about 2012.

As for Consultancy, do you remember phone cards?

And Banking is where your local high street Internet cafe was back in 2010.

These are all dead or dying industries. And no, the current jobs won't evolve, they will simply dissolve.

I follow a few developer forums. What is in the pipeline will quite literally change our society. Remember, the "A.I" that we as consumers are currently interacting with, the "latest version," is about five years old. The "current" stuff in development, is on a different level entirely.

Do you seriously think you'd rather your child was richer and miserable in preference to poorer but happy? Happiness cannot be bought.

Do you seriously think that an intelligent young person who pursues a creative discipline at 18 wouldn't be capable of subsequently getting some mpre traditional qualifications at age 28 if that turns out to be a good idea?

Do you seriously think that no transferable beneficial skills would be developed during 5-10 years spent pursuing a leadership role within a creative sector?

Back off. Let him have the freedom to pursue his dreams. Nothing will be wasted if he works hard at it, and working hard is a joy when you are doing something you love. If after 5-10 years he decides he's got as far as he's going to and doesn't want to go down that path any more, he can do an MBA and become a charismatic CEO of something using all those skills that the theatre taught him.