To think that the choices that you make as a teenager determine the rest of your life?

[poshsinglemum]

And how happy you will be?

Yet many teenagers make foolish choices. As a teenager I did work hard at A-levels but I was clueless about what career I wanted. I have settled on being a teacher but in retropect I'd liek to have been a doctor, lawyer of hotshot journalist.
It was at the age of 16 when I got involved with my very abusive ex and that has set the scene for my future relationships. I have had a difficult time with men ever since.
I think I was abit of a rebel to be honest and didn't want to listen to my parents at all.

I drank a bit and tried weed which messed my head up.

My sister was a very straight-laced teen and knew exactly that she wanted to be a doctor and is now a highly succesful psychiatrist. My parents thought there was something wrong with her as she spent her teens reading Jane Austin novels on the couch whereas I was down the pub shagging boys. Fair play to her. She's the one who has got the best life now.

I just wish I had made better life choices back then and yet I am filled with nostalgia for my fun-filled teens.

Having said that- I hope dd turns out like my dsis and not like me. I would love her to ba and Austen reading teen.

I will basically tell her what I got up to and say ''well if you really want to end up like me then go for it and rebel but I'm sure you'd rather be like your amazing auntie!''

I seem to remember a previous thread of yours where you expressed the opinion (quite convincingly) that despite all her material and worldly success, your sister was not a particularly nice or well-balanced person.

The socially acceptable choices on offer to teenagers aren't always right for everybody; I stayed in school and got good A levels, went to uni and got a decent degree despite some pretty fucked-up shit going on in my life. I don't have a career and have often thought that, had I made my own choices as a teenager instead of doing what everyone else expected of me, I might have ended up somewhere quite different, work-wise. Well, obviously I would have, but it might have been somewhere more meaningful to me.

There are very few people who don't look wistfully down the road not taken.
No-one's life is perfect, so it's time to count yer blessings, isn't it? That's the way I look at my own life anyway, full of love, but not much money, career wise etc.

I was the maddest wreckhead of all time in my youth. Still got married at 20, bought a place at 18, just got my degree, always worked, etc.

I just managed to keep both sides of my life seperately the goody, goody side I showed work, my parents, others parents etc. Then my going mad side all day, all night every weekend with no sleeping, eating or normality. I lived this way for years and it never did me any harm! I definitely dont think it effects your life as long as you are an accomplished jeckyll and hyde type!

I spent my teenage years living in a squat, and my life has turned out all right. So have the lives of the people I lived with.

You're no dead yet, OP. Give life a chance to happen before you decide what has determined the course of it.

more of a 'glass half empty' or 'glass half full' view of life. nothing to stop any of us retraining at any age or just going off and doing something completely different - yes it might be hard but it's not impossible. perhaps you might have to give up on the dream of gymnastics champion (over the hill by 20) though

Of course choices as a teenager can influence your direction for the rest of your life. It is not immutable, but far more difficult to catch up if you take a wrong turn so early on.

My parents were very clear what they expected of me growing up:

• to excel academically, to at least tertiary level
• not get pregnant early
• work hard at a well-paying career
• then marriage and children.

That template works pretty well. Not for everyone, I agree. But it is the safest and most direct route to a comfortable life.

fab post sparklyjules! My thoughts exactly.

Ditto aliarse

I wouldn't have my wonderful 12yo daughter if I'd chosen the sensible route of concentrating on my education at that age The rest of my life so far has been shaped by the fact I am a Mum. Yes I'd love it if my DD1 (or indeed either of my kids) could decide what she wants early and work towards it, but life is not as simple as ambition and achievement. Circumstances and sinchronicity play a massive part in life whether you scraped a few 'o' levels or gained a first class degree at Oxford. I went back to studying in my 20's. Teenage mistakes can be rectified. A good example of that would be Graeme Cox, who went to to be an astro-physicist (or something like that) after an early life of being in a band. A supportive family made all the difference to me. If your kids take the wrong path, keep the door open and give them the opportunity to turn around. That's what my folks did for me.

Very interesting question.

As a complete optimist ( Pollyanna? ) I'm inclined to say that any mistakes can be rectified.
I've reinvented my life many many times. And not always due to mistakes, often because I became bored with the old life.
I'd like to impress upon my kids that life is for living and grabbing opportunities. If things don't work out, you can always back track and find a new path. Very little is 'forever'.

That said, some actions do have a lasting impact, no question. If you start smoking you're going to find it a bugger to give up and it will affect your health. Similarly if you have unprotected sex, you open yourself up to HIV, the wart virus ( with its links to cervical cancer ), unwanted pregnancies.

So I guess I also want to impress upon them that actions do have consequences and that you have to be prepared to stand by those.

Yes and no. I never worked hugely hard as a teenager but was lucky to find school academics easy so got very good grades anyway. This allowed me to get a good job while I decided on what I wanted to do before going to uni at 23, getting into the uni I wanted to do the degree I wanted with no problem. This allowed me a successful career before giving me the option of choosing to change tacks and retrain, again getting onto the training (for a lower paid job, teaching) with no issues.

So what I did as a teen did set me up to be able to take certain routes, but they weren't choices I made. To be honest I only did what I had to, anything less wasn't an option with my slightly puchy parents! Who knows what grades I could have got, the ones I did get would have been enough for a 'hotshot' career but I didn't and don't want one. I would say the choices my parents made (good public school, slightly pushy etc) had more impact, teamed with the intellect they gave me!

But yes, I could have gone off the rails and done the whole drink/drugs thing in which case my life might be different.

I'm not sure that having a fixed idea of what you want to do is necessarily a good thing.

DS wants to be an Army doctor. So five years training, then going to Sandhurst then another couple of years training. It's ALL he wants to do so if he falls at the first hurdle of getting into med school (where there are 17 applicants with straight A* for every place), I don't know what he'll do.

"I will basically tell her what I got up to and say ''well if you really want to end up like me then go for it and rebel but I'm sure you'd rather be like your amazing auntie!"

But then you would be perpetuating the myth that a professional career (doctor, lawyer) is the most to which any of us should ever aspire and that if we fall short of this mark then we have failed.

Why would you want to hang that on your daugther?

i wish i wasn't forced to do gcse french and do a gcse that would of got me a grade 'c'. which would of been much better leading me to a better college course and then of course job. i've never used french since leaving school! it was a total waste of 2 years!

Mumblechum - reach for the stars; and just maybe you'll pull down the moon.

Hard work and education are rarely wasted, even if you take a different route through life to what you envisaged.

I don't think they have to. I think they do often because we beleive that they do. DH was a lazy pupil at school, got crap A-levels, started a 3 yr course at poly, gave it up after a year, worked in retail, then got made redundant and went to university to train as a teacher, qualified, didn't teach for 14yrs, went into social services working for adults with learning difficulties, then started doing carpentry/buliding work for 6 yrs. He got a tA job 2 years ago and started work as a teacher last Sept. He is finally a fully-qualified teacher.

I think it's too harsh to say that teenagers, who lets face it have other things to think about, are really in a good place to make decisions about the rest of their lives. Anf then act on them with determination and single-mindedness.

mumblechum: If he doesn't get in he can do biomedical sciences and then go onto qualify as a doctor doing the post-grad route. Adds a couple of years on but if he wants it enough he'll do it.

Personally, I think the choices made as a teenager affect your whole life but it's a bit strong to say they determine it. I was a 'good' teenager, got the a-levels and the degree but that doesn't (on its own) guarantee money and happiness.

Teenagers don't always make the most sensible choices but neither do people in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s (I've decided by my 60s I'll be wise )

There's nothing to stop you doing a-levels in your thirties. Yes it's probably unrealistic to go back to school for two years but there are part-time options. If you want it enough it's worth the time. My step-mum retrained as a lawyer in her late forties. I'm planning on retraining next year and I'm in my thirties. I will have two kids under three (touch wood), will be working full time on top and be having to travel 14 hours every three weeks to study. The time's there if it's important enough.

You only get one life. There's no point spending time blaming where you are now on whatever unfortunate events happen in the past because it won't help your future (this is not to negate the potential need for counselling etc to come to terms with past events btw). If you don't like your life at the moment only you have the power to change that.

That might seem overly rose tinted to some. I live in a country where there are a lot of people who are genuinly constrained by their circumstances of birth. Maybe 1 in 1000 would have enough intellegence/talent/luck to get out. In the UK you're not constrained in the same way unless you chose to be.

I wouldn't say that teenage decisions necessarily determine the course of your life but I do think that if you make bad choices or significantly decide to change your plans, it is harder to change the course of things as an adult.

Things like pregnancy, etc, obviously have a massive impact on future plans and you need to be VERY determined to overcome the problems that may come up as a result. But it can also be quite difficult to change careers if you then need to study, etc, at the same time as working and having a family.

I think teenage choices are restricted far too early here. You start knocking off school subjects as the age of 14 and you're down to only one at 18! If we retained a broader system of education for longer and allowed multiple subject degrees, people might not get so stuck in a rut and would have longer to decide what they want to specialise in

Mine certainly did, I made the choice at 16 to keep my baby, 17 years on I do sometimes wonder where life would have taken me had I not fallen pregnant with him, but to be honest, I wouldn't change a thing!

I have two more Dc now who are still very young, I wonder what I'll do fo myself as they get older and I'm looking forward to trying something new, but even at 34 I still don't know what!

I know plenty of people who have completely overhauled their lives/careers mid-30s.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up and I am 33. Am intending to do something completely different once DS2 is out of the baby phase.

Regrets are pointless, you can change things now if you want to enough.

There is only one action/decision that I regret from my younger years, and changing that wouldn't change where I am now...it was a moral thing.

All of the silly little things I did I don't regret, I wouldn't change where I am now for all of the tea in China or money I would have made.

Only if you let them.

They will influence your life, but not determine it.

The rest of your life is not set in stone. You can make changes the rest of your lfe starting from now.

There are few decisions you make as a teenager (or at any time)that are irreversible (unless you, say, get a criminal record which excludes you from certain professions that you later decide you desperately want to get into).

If you REALLY wanted to be a doctor you still could - you just would have to do your A-levels again and go to med school.

That said, I know what you mean in that sometimes these decisions are easier made earlier- so redoing A-levels prob isnt practical now.

I suppose the metaphor would be that it's easier to lay the foundations properly before you build the house rather than go back and fix the subsidence later.

There has been some VERY good points raised here in this thread. Some very inspirational words and phrases (Can I mark this thread so I can read it whenever I like?)

It has certainly made me re-evaluate my feelings towards where I am in my life now and how I feel about it.

One thing I read/heard about regrets is 'never regret a thing after all you wanted to do it at the time'. Hearing that completely got me over something that I regretted for months (leaving a job I once had).

This thread certainly has got me thinking and I hope it has you too OP.

bedubabe Thanks for that info, may well be a viable Plan B