Anyone else's kids planning on/having a 'portfolio career'?

[Echobelly]

My oldest wants to do quite creative, arty things and, fairly sensibly they realise a lot of them are not going to pay, especially living in the SE/London. They've talked about doing stage management, art/museum curation and some performance stuff but they know the latter would only ever be pocket money if it comes off.

This has the poncy title of 'portfolio career' which, let's face it is kind of a middle class word for the sort of thing that a lot of working class people have done since forever and is also I feel a a bit of a cover for 'no job security ever and not having to pay much for jobs a lot of people want' when it comes to arts type things.

I'm interested in what combinations of jobs young people are holding down these days and how that works out for them?

I don’t know anyone especially young who does this, but the 35+ year olds who do mostly don’t make much money, and either have a partner who brings in the cash, or live very frugally.

Those all sound like they're very difficult to get into, very difficult to fit around anything else and none of them pay very well?

Do they expect to support themselves independently? I don't think this is at all a working class way of working because people with this kind of working pattern generally need a safety net - aka bank of mum and dad. It depends what kind of lifestyle is the goal. If happy to live fairly frugally in shared rentals that's one thing. If the goal is a home and family - well that's a challenge. My own dd I think will have to face this dilemma. Myself - was happy with an itinerant and unstable life into my 30s so not looking down on that option. I worry though, because I don't think my own dd wants that life. The young people I know with this kind of arts portfolio are not living independently.

A career in film/set decoration/art direction would tick the creative box but also pays well.
Degree in Art, architecture etc very useful to start with, the industry is unionised so very protected. Is that an option?

Well young people are not holding down stable arts jobs and theyre sick of this Classic boomer rhetoric. Remove the jobs for life, remove arts funding and grants, require degrees for entry level then complain when creative people rebrand the shit options they are left with and call it “poncy”

british film and tv is hard bloody going- few people working consistently for good pay, same for journalism and writers. Every penny accounted for in museums and libraries/archives. Local theatres charging loads to make up for funding gaps.

good luck to your son, with your positive support Im sure he’ll go far in his “middle class poncing”.

My husband sort of does it and makes good money but he is basically doing two full time jobs ATM and is rather exhausted, taking holidays or even days off at weekends is almost impossible. Made six figures last year, just.
He had always been free lance in the creative sector but commercial art rather than fine art ( although he has a fine Art degree) or the public sector.
He always anticipates what new skills he needs to acquire, has a very strong work ethic, is well organised and fairly entrepreneurial...and a bit of a workaholic unfortunately.
I have to say, I know lots of people with fine art degrees and many have had good careers but mostly by concentrating on getting very good at one thing at a time rather than doing lots of different things. Some of them have pivoted and moved into new areas but again putting all effort into one area .
Yes, some did a variety of things when students or very young but settled on one thing in the end.
We all did various studenty part time jobs like retail or hospitality but that's standard l.
He'll just have to work it out as he goes along.

@Weefreetiffany - I realise reading it back that my OP might be misread as me going 'these are shitty poncy jobs and I wish DC wanted to be stockbroker'! Not what I mean at all; I totally support DCs idea and I'm just genuinely interested in what people are doing.

I absolutely want my kids to be able do creative jobs and would never expect or suggest they to do anything wouldn't want just for the money. I totally agree with you, I was saying the title of 'portfolio jobs' it was a bit of 'poncy' sounding way of describing 'no job security' and that I see how hard it is. It is infuriating that funding has been taken away from arts and that politicians, certainly in the last government, were so big on slagging off arts and humanities degrees. While accusing all sort of things of being 'a threat to our culture'.

DC is looking at a humanities degree at the moment, maybe a more career-specific postgrad to follow.

They will not have a bank of mum and dad in terms of a house deposit, but we will be able to support in other ways (eg we get on, have a decent sized house and they could probably live with us for an extended period while they get going)

They are a good multitasker and like being very busy (probable ADHD like brother, but likely wouldn't quite meet threshold for diagnosis)

It’s the classic working as a waitress while trying to get into the movies, isn’t it?

I think the difference is that the waitressing is the career, along with the influencing/etsy shop/theatre directing/ being a art therapist or whatever

I have a distant relative who does something like this. Occasionally lands an art sale or performance gig, but mostly pays bills through teaching kids English on Skype.

I have a portfolio career as a musician at 40. I’ve been doing this since I was 30, but had a good admin career prior to this and have savings. However, I work very hard and earn not very much, but enough to support myself (no kids, but never wanted them).

Your DC needs genuine paying work to make it viable though, not “influencing”/MLM nonsense.

Also - I’m from a working class background so no bank of mum and dad to fall back on. But I do have a partner and we share everything financially. I am also prepared to go back to the office if necessary.

My DS is a musician. He works two days a week teaching his instrument to pay the bills.

Otherwise gigs, etc.

Fairly standard for musicians.

I think as long as they realise that to get to their goal, there's going to be a lot of hard work doing non-related jobs in order to pay the bills it's fine.

A good friend/ex-colleague of mine is very into musical theatre and acting. She got into her role (B2B sales) by explicitly finding the type of role she wanted - something flexible but fairly well paid - and now is able to take time off/work her hours around her artistic commitments. If she was ever in a position to quit due to roles I'm sure she would, but she's got herself in a good position to support herself around that and also earn far more than her acting friends (working in hospitality) so really enjoys her life in London.

I’m a novelist, but like the vast majority of writers, even extremely successful ones, have a day job teaching creative writing in a university department. A very successful friend is having one of her novels made into a tv series atm, and even that is only paying her the equivalent of about a year and a half’s salary. An extremely famous artist friend, now in her 70s, made her living until retirement by teaching meditation and living very frugally.

I’d encourage your child to think seriously about how to tailor the ‘paying the bills’ part of her career to her strengths, and maybe research the kinds of things other people at a more established stage do.

It totally depends on the sort of work they want to do (there is huge variety in what you’ve named) and the thing I’d really recommend is studying business and entrepreneurship alongside.

Dh has a ‘creative job’ but his degree is in business. He earns significantly more than me (over £100k a year, certainly the business itself has turnover of approaching £1 million an year) and I have a PhD and a very typical middle class professional career. But it’s because he knew how to market himself, how to use social media, how to network, how to do a certain amount of web design, in order to convince people to buy what he had on offer. Not every creative needs to be in the gig economy, if they are clever enough to find a way to market themselves.

Many musicians have a portfolio career as it's the only option for many unless you go into education, academia, publishing etc.

I had a good secure employed job in the industry which I chose to leave in my mid thirties when I became a single parent. Since then I've had a portfolio career. The flexibility around parenting is the obvious pro, closely followed by the variety in my work (I have four music-related income streams).

The only reason this works financially for me though is that I got a mortgage and bought a house while I was employed. No one will ever lend to me again while I'm self employed on this little income so the only way I can move house is to sell up and move to a cheaper area and be mortgage free. If I didn't have the security of the roof over my head and the knowledge that if the financial shit hits the fan I can just sell the house, I'd be breaking out in a cold sweat periodically now that I have my DD to protect from my financial decisions!

I think for a few years in early twenties a portfolio career is great, or later on once you've already got some financial security it will work but I'm glad I had a few years of being comfortably off and able to afford holidays, going out for dinner regularly, theatre trips etc. because any luxuries are a stretch nowadays for me.

My 23 year old does something similar. He helps run a youth theatre group, he is in a band that gets gigs, he does freelance sound and stage management and he fills in gaps with ushering. Works for him.