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

Don't force your son into a job he doesn't want to do. I speak from bitter experience having had all my career choices vetoed by my mother.

With my kids I let them choose what they wanted to do and they're both happy and successful

YABU. There’s more to life than money.

I know plenty of people with good careers in the arts.

Let him live his own life and don't squash his dreams.

‘His asset is his brain’

what a sad way to think about your child. I hope he ignores you and follows his passion in life.

Have you seen Dead Poets' Sociery?

"We are both pushing him to apply for internships in banks/consultancies/law firms next summer so that his job opportunities will be maximised after Uni"

Second Year is definitely the time to apply for internships.

YANBU in terms of maximising job opportunities after Uni.

He may feel different when the reality of the job market hits in 3rd Year and he has an opportunity right under his nose from the internship.

It's about Choices. Indeed.

Oh the irony! He’s been given cultural capital and now wants to use it! Wtf do you think is the point of cultural capital? Is it just so you can have wanky dinner party conversations with fellow bankers?

Taking a show to the fringe will also look great on his cv if he decides he wants to go into banking. I’m not sure an internship will make much difference.

And yes he may or may not make it as a theatre director but there are plenty of people who make decent money in related careers (my SIL is a documentary maker, DBro’s ex is a radio producer, lots of people work as directors in TV and the film industry).

I think you're being very unreasonable and ime when parents do it, the child always ends up dropping out anyway.

The experience he'll gain through his own plans will be brilliant for whatever career he ends up in.

My parents pushed me into a career that pays well but now I feel trapped and miserable. Please listen to your son

That sounds like something really interesting to put on a CV IMO. I think it could make him stand out from the crowd. Sure an internship can be fantastic for getting a 'proper' job - but he's 19, let him give his dreams a chance. I think he sounds amazing and will be just fine.

He should have a backup plan because you can’t bankroll him forever. Even if he doesn’t have a high flying career he still needs a degree or a skill. Accountant or plumber.

I was going to write exactly the same re AI
Let him enjoy being young and free. As long as he has some cash coming in there's plenty of time to become a slave to the man.

Please back off and let him make his own life choices. You may find once he’s taken a show to fringe theatre is not for him that will be his choice. Be proud whichever career path he chooses.

YANBU to be worried about his future career path, but YAB a bit deluded if you think that law in this day and age will lead to a naice middle class career. It’s one of the most vulnerable sectors to AI and we certainly won’t see so many training contracts in future (already happening tbh). He might end up paralegalling on MW for an extended period.

I used law as a leg-up to a MC life after a similar background to yours. The same logic does not apply today. Unfortunately the world we know is not the world that our DC will live in.

I’d let him be.

Suggest it but leave him to choose. He’s an adult.

Taking a show to the fringe himself is gong to involve far more leadership and problem solving than the kind of work he might do on as an intern.

So you’d rather he spent years earning good money but doing something he doesn’t like? When he has a clear passion for something else?
It’s his life, let him live it the way he wants.

Back off AND stop assuming a career in the arts means failure. From the group I went to the Fringe with one is high up in events for a corporate group, another is Executive Producer on one of the biggest dramas of last year, I'm 20 years into a career in factual TV, someone else runs a theatre... Even if we were all living in tents though we wouldn't trade that incredible experience.
Taking a show up will teach him loads about running a budget, marketing, publicity, networking, resilience and so on though. All incredibly valuable even if he ends up doing something as inspiring as banking.

You are right in thinking thay theatre is a route to failure and poverty - not for everyone, but for many. But interfering with your son's dreams will only foster resentment. I know a huge number od people who've moved into professional careers (law, banking, medicine, teaching) after trying failing at something artistic in their 20s. The best thing you can do is encourage him to keep his options open and commit to revisiting or doing an internship in 3 - 5 years if it doesn't work out.

My parents pushed me towards a more academic path then I wanted to take (I wanted to be a beauty therapist but apparently that was a “waste of a grammar school education”). I’m hugely resentful about this, as the career they were so proud to see me in also pushed me towards a mental breakdown due to stress. I vowed that whatever my dc wanted to do, I would support them 100%, whatever I felt towards it. Their life, not mine.
my “mid-life crisis” aged 40 was meaning saying fuck you and your opinions, I’m gonna do something just for me that makes me happy, which I did and I’m now in a job that requires zero qualifications but I absolutely love and I’m so much happier. It was still a battle at my age with my parents still constant negativity towards it, I almost quit so many times due to their opinions, but I’m so glad I didn’t. And sometimes I wonder how much happier I would’ve been if I’d had the courage to follow my own dreams instead of theirs when I was younger. I will always resent them for it (not that they know it). Please don’t make your ds resent you too

With AI and other technological changes no one can be sure what will be the "big money" careers any more anyway.

I knew so many dead behind the eyes people who felt they had to rush to make as much money as possible.

I think as long as he has a plan that’s good. He knows what he’s doing in the summer and has ambitions to be a theatre director.

Im not sure there’s much use pushing other jobs. Just encourage to get a good result in his degree (not doing so much theatre that he neglects his work).

It’s not up to you- he’s an adult now and these are his choices. I went to drama school after Uni and after a couple of years doing rubbish jobs and auditions realised it wasn’t for me. Have now been teaching, very happily, for 30 years - acting skills v useful an and no regrets.

What are his genuine earning potentials? He probably won't become the next Leonardo DiCaprio but does this industry pay decently at all for the jobs he wants to do?