AIBU to expect DP to not change career?

[Tak3n]

Hello

you can help sort a dispute in our house..

DP has a first class honours degree, 2 (yes 2) Masters in Education, half way through a Doctorate

Suddenly 2 weeks ago announces to me that they feel like a change of career!!

and wants to leave the well paid job lecturing at a University to become a primary school teacher!

Don't get me wrong nothing against primary school teacher but I suspect DP would probably be one of the most over qualified Primary school teachers in the Country?

I don't truly understand it but there had apparently been a recent change where the qualifications DP has will now allow them to be recognised across all age ranges...

Not only that DP got offered a job at a primary school after just popping to a school for a 'informal' chat

Money aside, AIBU to think that giving up a well paid (albeit stressful) job to 'reset' DP's career is too much...

all the years and years of education, when he could of just done a degree and a PGCE and got a primary school job that way..

If we add the money for education (circa 20k) and now the pay cut, I am proper mad

But feel a little selfish

so AIBU

DP did this years ago. Had a high paying finance job, left it for... the police and shift work

How does it practically affect your life now, not considering future earnings?

If it makes meeting the mortgage, looking after any DC etc difficult then YANBU.

If it doesn't affect anything but the future then YABU.

It does give you the moral high ground if you want to change career at some point though

Surely if the DH has spent years and £££ working in an area and out of the blue wants to change and take a pay cut, it's worth a decent discussion?

On the whole, MN consensus is that major purchases like cars should be discussed - this strikes me as way bigger! It's not the same as saying no way but it's not a fait accompli either.

It's not really a change in career. It's still in the same field. If he suddenly wanted to drop everything to be a skiing instructor then you might have a point, but it's entirely understandable that in a lifetime's career he'd want to switch from teaching one lot of people to a different lot of people. Especially as education clearly fascinates him! YABU.

Lecturers do not get paid that much, so unless he's on a very low wage as a teacher, it might be pretty equivalent, plus if he rises up the ranks quickly his earning potential may rise faster than in academia (not bitter at all, no, not me).

And- neither of them are what I call 'big money jobs' (lawyer, doctor, actuary, City type stuff). But it's very sudden and I would be questioning your partner about why they made such a sudden move without consultation and what their thinking is behind it.

As a lecturer currently without a doctorate he'll be right at the bottom of the pay scakle anyway, and it's not really an established career. My husband is a lecturer, my sister a primary teacher. Their incomes are similar.

Think you have some strange ideas about what primary teaching involves - it won't be less stressful, or easier, and he won't be overqualified.

Depends what the impact will be on you as a family. I'd be flippin' delighted if my dh wanted to be a school teacher instead of a lecturer - academic careers are so unstable and uncertain.

Seems to me that the OP sees lecturing as having more prestige than primary teaching. And that is why she is upset.

I was thinking something similar, something christmassy. Tak3n, does your DP have a permanent position at the university which is either full time or would become that way when he finishes his thesis? It might be different in education, but nobody I know in my field gets any kind of permanent, FT contract before the end, or at least until their final year.

Of course it's absolutely normal to be concerned - this is a big decision. But if his lecturing position isn't secure then I see no reason for him not to go into teaching. As others have said, he could rise through the ranks pretty quickly.

DH changed his career. He had a stable, well-paid role, in a company an easy commute away. He jacked it in to become the first employee in a new startup, in a highly unstable industry. His commute doubled in length and quadrupled in cost. He took a £10k pay cut.

He's never been happier. God knows I was nervous about it and how it would impact on us - and it has - but we made it work. I could have pushed him to stay where he was (I've previously steered him away from a remarkably ill-advised attempt in joining the Navy) but there was no long-term profit in making him stay somewhere he was miserable in the name of presumed stability.

Given your DP's field of study, some actual long-term classroom experience would stand him in good stead if he wanted to go back into academia. Is he looking at the end of his PhD and seeing a scarcity of Postdoc roles, or roles demanding a certain amount of classroom experience? Education as a research field values that kind of practical experience more than say, theoretical physics.

It's unnerving for you to process, but if you understand why he wants to do this and what his long-term plans are - and how he'll adapt to what you want to do with your life as well, it can work out. Needs a lot of talking though!