Do others struggle when their child is less academic than them?

[StrongPasswords4EVA]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone would be prepared to talk about something which is only tangentially related to our jobs! In brief, my DD got her A-level results this week. She has got into a RG uni through clearing - but only just. I am genuinely so proud of her - she is massively disappointed not to have got into her first choice but thinking positively.

The thing I want to discuss is this. Essentially, I think my DD is not amazingly academic. And that is genuinely fine. The difficulty is that she would really love to be academic (I mean, I get it, there's a big emphasis on exam success) and has recently told me that she would like to be one. Quite apart from the shitshow in HE currently, I am not sure this is a realistic goal for her. And I have such complex feelings about it all. I guess disappointment is a big one - not in her, but that some pathways may be closed off for her. Which I also know is true for all of us! And I don't know whether I am also grappling with something less positive - a sort of ... frustration? That she has not inherited the thing I can do. Which is also mad because it truly is about the only thing I can do and it has not necessarily led to great riches or other conventional measures of 'success' - or even, always, happiness.

Anyway ... I guess the question is, does anybody else grapple with complicated feelings if their kids are less academic than they are?

What you are grappling with is the thing parents have always had to grapple with. You expected (perhaps subconsciously) your child to be exactly like you and she isn’t. You see this in any family with a strong culture (academic, musical, farming, religious).

I think the academic thing is interesting because intelligence is very heritable. So it is more disappointing if your child is less intelligent than you, but then you can always expect some reversion to the average in these traits.

I have four kids and only one is ‘clever’ in the way I was as a child. I have found that challenging, but on reflection I have found that although being naturally bright is great for being the best at school and university, it has been much less important in my career. I would have gone further if I was more extroverted, creative or harder working.

There are many ways to have a great life.

This isn’t quite what you asked OP but I went to school with people who didn’t get the best grades, went to uni but not Russell Group and have since done a masters, got a PhD and now work as academics (researchers/lecturers) in their fields.

Just because your DD didn’t get the top grades doesn’t mean she can’t go on to be an academic in a field that really interests her.

I’m an academic in an RG. My A levels were a bit rubbish and I scraped into uni, but when I was there I found my groove, loved my subject and was surrounded by people who loved it too, and great lecturers who were engaged with the cohort (doesn’t happen so much now but there were plenty of staff-student events that everyone just went to - on one memorable occasion a few postgrads presented their research as practice for a conference and then we all did karaoke!), so it could happen. I think something needs to ‘click’ first. That said, I do know a professor whose DS dropped out of school, went and did a carpentry course, and now has a very successful career making fancy furniture for fancy people.

That's a very good point - often high academic achievement goes hand in hand with poor mental health (at least in my own experience and in the experience of my peers). I'll be very happy if my son's mental health is more like his father's, as he's much less prone to depression and neurosis than I am.

Exactly
I got to a certain age and stopped being so ambitious naturally. But DH can’t shake it. Everything has to be measurable. Every run? It goes on an app. Every hobby? Has to end in a qualification and be taken really seriously. Good job with decent colleagues? But always chasing promotions. I have often told him sometimes you just need to be silly. And enjoy life for what it is.

I don’t want that for my children.

Does she have a passion for her subject? I think that's all you can ask for, really.

My relatives are very high achieving academics in the humanities, value education really highly, have the most gorgeous library in their house. Their kids grew up total townies and didn't care about education at all, despite getting relatively good A Levels -- it's not that they particularly struggled with education, it's that their values were just completely different. They've grown up to work in industries like recruitment, live in new build houses on estates, like posh cars etc, while their parents were the kind of parents who drove something embarrassing and spent all their time reading.

As far as I know they all still really get on and love each other etc, but I'm just saying that it sounds like your dd is more of a chip off the old block than you might think. Only a very small proportion of people who go to uni will go on to be academics, and if she's enthusiastic about her subject and likes learning then that's all you can ask for, really.

It is genuinely hideous for young people who want to be academics these days and I would personally warn off any young person from trying to be one, so maybe encourage her into other industries, of which there are plenty, and there's lots of interesting, valuable things to do outside of academia.

@Floppyearedlab hmm, yes. This is not poor me, at all, because I have a lovely life - but I have often felt that I haven't quite lived up to my (apparent) academic potential. This is partly because being able to write a nice essay is a fairly narrow life skill! I lack a bit of emotional intelligence and confidence too. My DH on the other hand is not academic and has both in spades and has out-earned me significantly!! If money is taken as one measure of 'success' ...

I am a second career academic, so came from industry in my thirties but it's changed loads in the last twenty years. Some colleagues have been very lucky with their timing, subject and contract. Others more recently have been treated very poorly.

A recent colleague in her late twenties stayed less than a year before jumping ship out of academia. She has PhD, emerging research profile, excellent teaching feedback and she was superb in the role I knew her in. I thought she was an absolute star....but also a star who knew her worth and wanted a mortgage so jumped to get a permanent contract and better salary which was much easier to achieve elsewhere.

Anyway.. slightly off topic @StrongPasswords4EVA but I don't think academic careers are what they were at all.

I agree that often it's the other skills that make people a success. My adhd DS who has always struggled academically and had to be in the "special stream" for the last year of high school (not in the UK) has done well on a 16-18 practical, vocational qualification in outdoor activities and is going on to do the next stage up (HND equivalent). He is thinking of trying out for the national police force after that and if he gets in will start on a similar salary to what I currently earn in my bookish, language based job at fifty something. If he doesn't go for the police it'll be something to do with the outdoors or fitness and dealing with people, kids perhaps (but not teaching as such). He is really good at those things, much better than me.

There are so many routes to a "good life" these days.

One thing I'd say is that A-levels/university attended are not necessarily an indication of someone's ability to be a successful academic. I know a very successful academic who has pretty poor A-level results and an average at best first degree in an unrelated subject (I know because I interviewed him years ago for an admin support position). Now, over 15 years on, he has a PhD and is technically in a more senior position than me (at a different institution). I've worked with several other brilliant academics whose first degrees were from low ranking non-RG unis.

Academic success/achievement was important to me (straight A student, first class degree etc) but now I'm in my 40s I see it all as much less important. Across my school cohort there is little correlation between school results/degrees and where they are in life now in terms of income or happiness. A girls I was friendly with, but who was completely different to me (hated studying, didn't care about exams, left school at 16) now runs her own very successful fitness business that employs several people and is a huge asset to the area - mainly kids classes. The irony is not lost on me that we both have ended up working in jobs with a similar aim - to improve child health and wellbeing. Arguably her impact is greater.

My child is still in KS1 and he's finding reading/writing challenging. If I'm honest that came as a bit of a surprise to me. But I won't be disappointed if he is less academic than me and his dad (and I definitely won't be encouraging him to be an academic...)

I also feel being very academic can close doors. For example, at school I considered careers such a physiotherapy or radiotherapy and was told by many people 'why would you do that if you can study medicine'. Similarly, at the end of my undergraduate I considered teaching and my professor was massively disappointed - I was his star pupil and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps and do a PhD in the subject. He said 'I could do so much more than teaching '. Well I didn't do a PhD in my undergraduate subject, but I also didn't go into teaching. I often think I would have enjoyed many aspects of teaching/physiotherapy etc and in no way think that what I've ended up doing is superior to those jobs in any way.

There’s a lot of confusion in this discussion between intelligence, being academic and being intellectual. DS is highly intelligent but never would describe himself as intellectual. Perhaps DD would be happy teaching in a Secondary School? In my experience a lot of lecturers are neither highly intelligent or academic. Being ‘an academic’ is a not the same thing. If she is just starting out on her uni career she has lots of time to develop and decide what she really wants to do in life.

Interesting thread. I am academic-all As, oxbridge, masters etc and my eldest is also super intelligent-however she has not been able to apply herself due to underlying ADHD, anxiety and depression etc and although she did manage to sit her GCSEs in the end this year, she did not do any revision and will not achieve the 8/9s she was originally predicted. So like a PP I have had to adjust my expectations from high flying academic success to just being delighted she went to them at all-and quite frankly that she is still alive. Still can’t quite shake the feeling sometimes that it’s such a waste of potential but then I give my head a wobble and focus on her amazing determination and strength of character she had to pull herself through this.

My youngest is far less academic but is incredibly emotionally intelligent and sociable and I suspect will go much further than the older two because of her personality-academics are not everything

If your daughter wants to work in HE as an academic but isn't that academic... then just advise here to get on the Associate Dean track... she'd just need the ability to make the worse decision possible at any time... and failing upwards in HE is quite easy...

Sorry for being silly

And in all seriousness there's lots of routes into academia...especially on more practice /vocational/arts courses.

I got E/E/C on my A levels - scraped into my second choice uni... And now I'm a Principle Lecturer... I don't have a PhD...I just went into teaching after years in the industry.... so never say never...

Even back in the 80s (when I did my first degree) you really needed a 1st to progress on to funded postgrad study. Now it is even more fiercely competitive. I tutor postgrads as a side hustle. Most have English as a second language so although they know their subject they need help with academic writing and presentation. In many cases they are driven to achieve by parental and family pressures and not by academic ability or intellectual curiosity.

One of my children has severe learning difficulties and has left school with a handful of certificates. It's nothing like what I ever expected for my life and has been fucking challenging at times but I've learned a lot through parenting him.

Neither of my DCs are likely to go to university, one will not do GCSEs, one probably will but won't do A levels.
This is both a source of sorrow and a huge relief.
My DH went to uni in later life and had a great office based career before that. I'm not sure either of mine will do that either.

But it means we aren't going to be supporting them at uni and can put that money towards a house deposit.
They are more likely to move up in their chosen jobs a bit earlier and they'll probably stay local which I'd love them to do.

I have 5 DC and one isn’t academic in the slightest, as in we are paying a fortune for tutors each week in the hope she will pass her maths and English GCSEs. She’s in and always has been in the bottom sets. Other DC are academic and have flown through school, eldest got all 8s and 9s in his GCSEs and is now doing 4 A Levels.

Your DD got into a Russell so I doubt she isn’t academic. Non academic people are typically either technical so would suit apprenticeships/vocational study or creative so uni is on the table but something within the arts. Some people have a combination of two or three of those strands and can fit any route.

My husband went to Oxford for all his degrees (although he's not the academic in the house, I am). He had our children pegged as the 'academic one and not academic one'. Guess which one is in her third year on track for a 1st in a field where funded PhDs (for the vocational career afterwards) are competitive but expected. The 'academic one' did humanities in a field where funded PhDs are like hen's teeth.

Being an academic is partly about your background, where you went, who your supervisor was. But it's also about more than that, you know that OP. My husband is clever, but as his supervisor wrote in his reference for him, he's 'not the most original thinker'. And for most jobs that's not a problem, but if he wanted to be an academic it would have been. That's partly why I'm an academic despite not having a PhD, because it turns out I have a knack for producing sole-authored papers and have years of teaching experience (not all in HE).

Your daughter is young. She may change her mind about career destinations. She may turn out to be a late developer academically. It does happen.

Yes, this definition of "not academic" is a rather idiosyncratic one!
I'd take "not academic" to mean "will struggle to pass GCSEs" not "got into a Russell Group university".

Same. I didn’t do my undergrad at a Russell. I was a first gen student so I didn’t even know the difference, I just studied at the one closest to home. I learnt the difference and did my MA and PhD at a Russell then a post doc at Oxford, now lecture at a Russell.

Then there’s my DD who might not pass her maths GCSE - it’s touch and go. To be honest, the EBACC also needs removing. She hates history but was forced to take it and will almost definitely fail it. You have to pick your battles so we’ve told her to focus all energy on English and maths as she actually needs those for college. History and science are being largely neglected, she doesn’t need either to study the college course and they just add more stress to her life.

I'm in STEM so with the one who will pass GCSEs we are pushing that, that's DC 2 who's in Y8 so they haven't mentioned EBacc yet. Maybe it won't exist by the time they are in Y11. I'm also pushing MFL to both as we have family abroad and they can see that a working holiday amount of a language is useful even if they do nothing more.
The one who will probably do Functional Skills is unfortunately more interested in science but there isn't an appropriate qualification.