...to ask if you'd be happy if your kids chose the same career as you?

[LorelaiVictoriaGilmore]

And if so, what do you do? I've been thinking about this since a conversation between friends who are lawyers, doctors and teachers. My friends all said that they wouldn't want their kids to do the same career they do... all said they felt some combination of over-worked, underpaid, under appreciated, clobbered by office politics, in an environment unfriendly to women or families etc. And that got me thinking about my parents who didn't want me to do similar jobs to them either - both worked in government jobs and thought the private sector was better.

So who does think that their job is good enough for their kids? Anyone?!

Any job my kids want to do when older that so legal and can provide them enough to live on I'm happy.

I work in project management in civil service and wife HR in civil service and if my kids wanted to go into that when older then I would be happy for them too. Flexible hours, ok pension not as good as before, term time working available, good holiday entitlement and sick policy etc.

However I would suggest to them to go private to start then public a few years later as there's higher earning and quicker progression in private and then move over to public to start a family.

errr... not entirely sure my kids are good enough for my job...

actually, academically speaking, they're not, either of them

they'll have to think up their own way of feeling under-appreciated

Nope. I’d support her if she wanted to, but it’s not a great job (EDnurse) Long and unsociable hours, not great pay, abuse, and an assumption you couldn’t be a doctor so are stupid. Positive though is it can be family friendly with being able to work around partners or family needs.

@corythatwas I hadn't thought of that... good point!

I’d strongly discourage (teacher) - I don’t even recommend teaching to my students! I love it, but it steals every moment of my time and worms it’s way into every aspect of my life. At this point it’s part of my identity. I would want my children to have more work life balance

Surely it’s all about having experienced the good and the BAD of ANY career?
Kids need to be told the facts so they can make up their own minds, DH and me are a doctor and a musician respectively and none of our DC’s have the slightest interest in either!

I’m not prepared to say what I do but I wouldn’t mind at all if either of my kids followed in my footsteps. It seems unlikely though.

They are still at primary school and they both have pretty firmly held views on what they’d like to do. Neither of their choices follow DH or I.

I didn’t follow my parents’ choices either. Neither did DH.

Yep, I would. As a pp I work in project management, but in the NHS. I'd advise them they'd get paid more elsewhere though if earning loads was important to them

Cooey @SequinsOnEverything.
I agree private sector to earn the money and credibility then decide whether the drop in pay is worth the public sector benefits ( not many left though cough cough)

They are still at primary school and they both have pretty firmly held views on what they’d like to do.

It's definitely a hypothetical question... currently ds wants to be a daddy and an elephant when he grows up. But if he did express an interest in City law one day I'd be a little worried about him losing any chance of a work/life balance, missing out on family life, etc.

siwel yes, I've done it the wrong way, started public sector and would maybe consider private in the future. Got to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each though.

LorelaiVictoriaGilmore just noticed your name, I love Gilmore Girls!

@Sequins. Same however I think I will stay public. Me and my wife both work term time only. Have all the holidays with the kids and have done some amazing things with that time. Unless I was getting at least 50k more I wouldn't give up that time.

@LorelaiVictoriaGilmore we should introduce our kids in 15 years time- my 9yo wants to be a doctor/tooth fairy/wizard/ballerina/lawyer/magician.

I may have a different perspective from some as I returned to study later than most, and so just encourage the kids to go after what will make them happy. My ethos is that as long as they want to work hard at something they love, it is OK with me. They'll spend the majority of their lives working, so they may as well enjoy what they do.

Both of mine are at uni doing things vaguely similar to my work world. Exactly the same in one case, except I didnt have to incur £50k worth of debt to do it. She's hated the 1st year, but she will be brilliant when it actually comes to doing the job!

No way in this earth. Hell will freeze over etc.
I’m a doctor and I’ll be strongly discouraging them from considering medicine.

I'd not be persuading them, but, OTOH, I wouldn't be dissuading them if they wanted to either. I think it's pretty normal - you tend to see / hear about the things in other people's jobs that you envy a bit, but feel worn down by the negative things in your own job. the grass always being greener and all that.

I'm a teacher and dd has sometimes talked about going into teaching. I always try to dissuade her because I'd like her to have a work/life balance.

I would do my best to dissuade either of my dds from following me, thankfully neither of them are interested in any form of healthcare career.

I also try to.dissuade any work experience, idealists etc

@Fortybingowings out of sheer curiosity, why? I desperately wanted to be a doctor but physical aspects put a stop to that. Is it the pay and hours? Both of which are beyond appalling (come from a family of doctors/nurses), just wondered why you would think this.

Food for thought for my little Doctor Ballerina Tooth Fairy Magician .

Construction management, yes I’d recommend it to DD. We’re not booksmart people, but we have a comfortable life provided by the opportunities that construction has given.

Most house builders give their managers a discount, they pay well, the work life balance hasn’t always been great, but then I’m sure it’s not only construction that works the same way.

Ultimately I just want her to not worry about money, or job stability, and this is something she’s growing up knowing about.

I'm a RN. I'd be happy for my daughters to follow in my footsteps. Yeah, it can be tough but there are so many different avenues you can take! And since having children, it has been so flexible.
Although they would earn a tonne more money if they followed their father's footsteps into engineering... Hubby loves his job.
I guess we just hope they are able to be happy in their careers and earn enough to be comfortable.
I'm a happy nurse but there are so many unhappy ones out there. It's easy to burn out.

No. I hate my job. Very highly regulated call centre environment, with possibility of criminal prosecution if we cock up. Every task is quality checked, we're on internal CCTV, all on headsets all the time, shifts 7 days a week up to 10 hours some days, with no guaranteed parking, miles out of town & no bus. Breaks are monitored & allocated, management are continually changing the goalposts so it's virtually impossible to get good scores. It's all linked to the possibility of a measly pay increase for the top 5% or so of staff, which even team leaders admit is almost impossible to achieve. Almost no possibility of internal career progression or decent training. My team are having massive issues recruiting or retaining enough staff & have just increased the salary by a fair bit to reflect the fact that the job is basically impossible. It's still not even close to the average salary for the country though. They still can't fill the jobs & everyone is frantically looking elsewhere - anywhere - for work. I know of several people who are / have recently been off long term with stress / MH issues / health issues exacerbated by stress.

I'm going to encourage my DC to do well at school so they can do a job they enjoy. Not like me who fucked it up. I NC'd for this because I bet the employer could identify it if they saw it.

we should introduce our kids in 15 years time- my 9yo wants to be a doctor/tooth fairy/wizard/ballerina/lawyer/magician.

Just one of those would be hard work! I worry about whether ds will have a good work/life balance as both a daddy and an elephant!

I'm an in-house lawyer and would be happy for my kids to follow the same path (equally happy if they chose something different though).

It's well-paid, flexible, interesting enough (I mean plenty of boring stuff in there too but enough to keep mentally engaged with), has enabled me to work for various interesting companies around the world.

Lawyers love to moan about law but if you're lucky it can be a great career.