AIBU to think that it is rare that a child

[helloclitty]

will have a career outside the level of their parents interests or expectations. Or indeed their parents own specific career paths.

AIBU to think that social mobility can never really exist even if all education was free. Ultimately we are all products of our own parents knowledge base and expectations except for a rare few?

And even those who say they really don't mind what their children do as a career actually do create an unspoken level of expectation which influences their children massively.

I think its true in some ways. Most children to follow their parents ways, be it by getting pregnant at an early age, living on benefits, being a SAHM etc. Some will break the mould but i better the latter is far more likely.

DS is too young to be thinking about his future yet, all i hope for him is that he has a job he enjoys regardless of what it is and that it earns him enough to self support himself. The only "influence" as such I want him to learn is that you can have children and work, I dont want him thinking that his sex means he works and his partner gets the luxury of staying home automatically.

YABU.

My grandfather sold toothbrushes door to door and raised five children - 2 with PHDs, 2 with internationally respected businesses they've set up and a teacher.

My father, who has double first in chemistry/physics and a PHD and is a R&D scientist, tried very, very hard to encourage us in sciences because it gave him amazing opportunities but we all rebelled - poor him - and he raised three children with degrees in history, art and psychology that have careers that he didn't even know existed.

I think that in all our cases we looked at the generation before and thought ... Don't fancy that much

Actually I think what kladdaka (I think?) said earlier about its being uncharted territory for some parents when their DC go off into education is quite right.

I used to work in a Russell Group university and there was no question for those kids that they would do a degree somewhere, some came in knowing they wanted to do MAs later, etc.

I now work in a large regional university and the difference in knowledge and confidence is amazing, because many of the students are the first in their families to go to uni. Just last week, a colleague pulled aside the brightest student in the second year and asked what she wanted to do afterwards. She said tentatively that she might possibly try to do an MA at BarelyRussellGroup Uni.

He pointed out with her marks that she could easily consider Oxford or Cambridge. She was honestly shocked and had had no idea. I think a barrister's daughter wouldn't have needed telling that, somehow.

My dad was a mathematician, my mother a physiotherapist. From age 5 I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I used to listen to the news at breakfast and I was hooked. My parents knew nothing about journalism.

So no, I don't think a child is restricted to their parents' career choices.

4 children in my family, parents college teachers with a total focus on academia and a matching total lack of interset in business and technology. Between them they managed to produce:

one trawlerman who later progressed to a job as a first mate on a large vessel

two researching academics

one founder of a one-person firm for producing computer software (and, I think, some hardware)

50% went to university, 50% did not.

Looking at my own children, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get the same 50/50 divide between academic and practical.

Dh's dad, a hairdresser, was devastated when his son decided to become an archaeologist; he wanted him to start in a proper job straightaway- dh just ignored him and went to university anyway.

Let's not forget that parental expectations can be about other things than careers and education. I would hope that my parental expectations are about dcs thinking carefully about what path is right for them rather than just following blindly.

It isn't true at all in my experience. Too many parents think that they can tell the DC what to do-luckily it doesn't often work and they have minds of their own. The ones that have difficulties are the ones who have parents with very high expectations and they are frightened to disappoint. I haven't known any who have been held back.