Were you steered into your career by your parents ?

[Lardlizard]

How much guidance do you give you ?

No steering or support at all, I really
Wish that they'd known more and guided me more. However, my dc will
Probably end up resenting me for trying too hard and because of it!

Sort of. My brother and I were the first generation of our family to go to University and when it was suggested by my teachers that I should study for my profession my parents were very excited and proud. They had been proud of my brother too, but my course and University were definitely perceived as more prestigious. They didn't push me as such but I knew they wanted me to do it so I went along with it. I didn't really know what I was letting myself in for to be honest, and my parents definitely didn't, I certainly didn't object to the plan. I have been pretty successful and I earn a good salary - well more than my parents could ever have dreamed of anyway. With hindsight, I am not sure it was what I really wanted to do, and if I had known at 18 what I know now, I am not sure I would have made the same choices. But my income has given my children fabulous opportunities so that makes it worthwhile.

My father believed that you left school and went straight out to work. My mum was anything for the quiet life so she went along with him. I wasn't really encouraged to do homework etc. I went to university and got my degree but as a mature student. I really wish they had been more encouraging. My mum was an extremely intelligent woman and had she been born when I was she would have probably gone to university herself. My uncle was encouraged to go to grammar school and university and became a teacher, my mum wasn't. She was a very good artist and in our home town there was an art school with basic subjects alongside, she was offered a place but she couldn't pass the maths element of the exam so could not go which upset her.

Yes, when I was 12 my dad told me I'd have a good career in a particular field and I'd be able to earn good money. He told me I needed to work hard and then I'd go to university.
So I did, and he was right. I love my career and earn good money.

I wanted to be a nurse from around 5 years old. This was always accepted as a vocation although my parents, as I got older, kept pushing being a doctor rather than a nurse.

Being a doctor was way outside my dedication levels. It pisses me off that no one ever suggested anything else between these two vocations.

I did become a nurse but it wasn't right for me. I suspect, that had I been aware of them, other medical specialities would have suited me far more. Radiologist being the main one that I think would have suited me but dietician or occupational therapist are others that I could have explored.

As an adult psychologist would have been my prefered direction BUT none of those avenues were even thought about or discussed.

No ones fault, they weren't avenues my parents were aware of but I do often wonder where I would have gone/been

My parents raised housewives so never guided me towards education or a profession. I attained both.

My parents steered me away from medicine as I was keen to be a Dr. At the time (1990s) the hours were terrible for junior drs and the job in general was thought of as very tough. They arranged work experience for me in a hospital so I could see what I thought and actually I didn’t really enjoy it.

They did try to encourage me to do very academic subjects for A level which was good as we got minimal guidance at school.

Ended up doing law and enjoying it after doing a humanities based first degree. Basically they tried to encourage me to do something that I enjoyed and would be good at, whilst also considering what the job itself would actually be like.

Neither of may parents had been to uni but they believed strongly that education gives you more chances in life.

I would have liked to study history but my parents pushed for law because they thought that would lead to a good job. By and large they were right.

I have positively hated my job for most of my working life but I think that was because I chose to go into a City law firm which had a nasty misogynist culture. No surprise that my exH was also a City lawyer and also a nasty misogynist and EA to boot. I dropped out after 20 years after having a breakdown caused by being sandwiched between the two of them.

However, late in my working life I am working in-house legal for a charity and, whilst the money is rubbish, I do actually enjoy using my legal skills now. It has just taken me a long time to get here.

No, my df tried to persuade me to take a job filing at his mate’s little factory, live at home and pay him rent.
My lovely lovely English teacher helped me fill in a university application form and apply for a grant instead.
I think supporting your dcs’ choices within reason is the best approach.

I wouldn’t say steered but I was forced into University. In hindsight I should have taken a gap year but my mum read an article in the daily mail saying that most don’t go back to university after so I wasn’t allowed I was too much of a coward to stand up to her at the time.

My parents have always been “you can’t do that” but never gave any encouragement as to what I can do and they’ve never once said I was any good at anything. They’ve never given any guidance either.

My mum has never really worked and my dad just thought you should stay in a shit job until you die. A viewpoint he has now changed.

I hate that there is such emphasis on making a big decision at 18 to decide what to do with your life. It’s not like many can afford to go back to university to retrain if you make the wrong choice like I did.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do at 17 when I applied to university and I’m still none the wiser at 29...

My DPs were fairly neglectful from the age of 14. The only input I got was my mum saying I couldn't do a GCSE in media studies because she had seen on a morning tv show that it was useful (I went on to study media studies at AS level and got an A). No help with revision, options or careers was given. I fell in to a council job where my mum worked when I left uni. I've worked my way up but I regret not pursuing one of my interests like medicine or law. Dps are well off (DF retired at 55 out of choice) but they were clear that they wouldn't pay for any of my education so perhaps I couldn't have afforded the options I would have really liked anyway. I certainly remember being put off at the time. Dd is 14 months and I'm already saving for her so she can confidently pursue whatever she wants.

*useless

No, they both left school at 13, and were detectably alarmed when I came home with good marks from school, told me university was ‘only for rich people’ and that we could never afford it, which was a classic example of their attempt to pre-emptively close down options that they thought would give me ‘ideas above my station’.

I filled out my own university applications, won a series of scholarships, ended up doing two degrees at Oxford, and went on to have an academic career. All my siblings followed me to university. My parents have no idea what I do.

My father put me off everything I suggested: guide dog trainer, army, police, teacher. In the end, I applied to nursing without telling them, I only told them when I started training.

No, they were totally clueless. Never enquired about what I might like to do, just assumed I'd "do well", based on nothing in particular. I ended up dropping out of school , and getting a dead end job which made them upset but they still didn't show any support at all. Just moaned about "what a waste of your good brains" . A friend decided to do her nursing degree and told me over coffee how interesting it was. So I decided to follow her lead, and off I went.

Not at all. I was the first person in my very working class family ever to go to university and they didn't have a clue.
I ended up a teacher which really pleased my mum as that was her dream, but she couldn't go to grammar school because her mum couldn't afford the books and uniform.

Not much guidance. My parents did not encourage me to go into the family business because I was a girl
My mother wanted me to do medicine, which was enough to put me off. I sort of drifted my own way really but it all worked out well in the end.

As I was a girl all my parents steered me into was leaving school at 16 to get a job in an office. The school tried to persuade me to stay and go kn to university to do a degree but my parents were both panic stricken by the idea (How would they pay for it? It was free then), and contemptuous of it, "so what would you do with a 'degree,' then?"

"But you want children, don't you?" was also said a lot ; ie what's the point of a career when you will just give up work to have children?

So I got a job in an office. In my 30s I got a degree but before I could get a career off the ground the children came along.

Now I am in my 50s in the same kind of crap admin/secretarial job my mum had at the same age. As are my sisters and my female cousins. (My male cousins went to Oxford and Cambridge respectively. )

I was given a choice of 2 careers (by my mother and then step father) and had to pick one. I was given no guidance in regards to what GCSE's or A levels to do. However when I was seriously struggling with one of the A levels that was necessary for the career chosen for me I wasn't allowed to change/drop it. In the end the teachers involved said either I dropped it or they would drop me. So that was the end of either career (which I had no interest in anyway, nor was I academically bright enough for).

And there ended my mothers interest in my career! I was totally left to my own devices. I ended up doing a degree that needed the minimum GCSE/A level pass rates to enter, at a local college. I did ok. Was the first (and so far only!) person in my family to get a degree.

I've never done any jobs related to my degree. I waitressed for years then went into shop work. Would love to have the money and time to retrain but no idea what I want to do anyway.

Not guided, but supported through out. They were not over keen when I chose nursing as they are both nurses but they could see my logic for choosing it and have supported me, DSis and my DH over the years in picking our own paths through nursing. Having their support has been essential through challenging times and given us all the confidence to pursue our interests.

No guidance at all from my parents. No help to guide me to achieve better than I did.
They were clueless at what I was good at (science and maths) so it was never suggested to me that I could have had a science career.
I could have got much better results at school if I'd had some sort of direction. But I dropped out of college after picking subjects my friends were doing.
So I've no A level, didn't go to university and have only ever had admin based jobs.
I recognised early on that dd was gifted in those subjects so I've done all I can to support her and help her achieve all she's capable of. But I do think it's easier today with the internet. It's so easy to research careers and how to get there.

I was told which A-Levels I had to study, and I really wasn't suited to them. It cut down my uni choice considerably as the subjects didn't really work together and I had very little choice. I ended up studying something that I'm not particularly good at, didn't get great results and have never managed to get a proper job as I'm clearly not cut out for it!

No. At least not beyond encouraging me to go to university. And even then my dad sulked because I hadn’t picked a “proper” subject (my degree is in chemistry, but the only “proper” subject in his eyes was and probably still is engineering).

They tried. I resisted vigorously. They tried again after undergrad. I resisted some more. They made it very clear they were lying awake nights racked with worry that I was studying - gasp - English.

I feel a bit sorry for them really. They're both medics and simply couldn't imagine any career path than one of the traditional professions. The private sector looks terrifying to them. But I love it, I'm very well paid, stimulated, I have flexibility. I can even be lucratively self employed if I want. If I'd become a doctor or lawyer like they wanted I'd have been miserable - and the fact that they couldn't recognise that made me feel they didn't know me at all.

I would advise my child, if they were open to it, on pros and cons of different directions based on my experience. I would certainly not try to incentivise or force them into something career-oriented. Traditional careers are all but dead or evolving rapidly under tremendous force and a very career-tied qualification may well end up a millstone long term. Being able to pivot and relearn will be more important.