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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask what career you want for your child or children?

354 replies

glammother31 · 05/09/2018 08:15

Have you got it all mapped out or are you just going to roll the dice? Will they go to uni or have you not decided?

I'd be really interested to hear different points of view.

OP posts:
BackforGood · 05/09/2018 19:17

My daughter already knows what she wants to be anyway

Ha Ha Ha
She's 3.

Trying to think back to that age, mine varied between wanting to be a spy, someone selling ice cream at the seaside, a mummy, the Fat Controller, an archaeologist (don't think they knew what it was, but heard the word and liked the sound of it).
Over the next 2 decades, they've been through dozens of ideas of what they want to do. I have one who is graduated. He is working, but he knows he doesn't want to do his job forever, just doesn't yet know what he does want to do.

However, the point is, it is up you them, what they want to do with their lives.

Oh, and no, none of mine want to sit and do nothing other than play on x box all day. They all like to out, doing stuff.

Justnoclue · 05/09/2018 19:30

GrinGrinGrin ahhh OP thank you for the laughs.

Thank you for ‘using the power of this social media to harness’ my disbelief and amusement.

Here’s my advice to my DC:

  1. Don’t be a twat

Not everyone manages it Wink

bananasandwicheseveryday · 05/09/2018 19:31

As far as we were concerned, we wanted to make sure our dcs had the opportunity to follow whatever they chose as a career. In reality, it meant supporting them throughout school, ensuring they had the chance to experience different places, people, occasions, events, without pushing them in any direction that we chose for them. At three, they wanted to be things that appeal to three year olds - a dinosaur, a policeman and so on. As adults, they felt comfortable enough in their own decisions to decide to go/ not to to university and to follow the career path they wanted. One chose to go to university, one didn't. They are both doing jobs they love. But not the ones they thought they wanted to do as three year olds.

And as for the pp who suggested that they'd rather have a depressed child than a happy one - no, you wouldn't. Your suggestion , imo, is obscene and a real kick I'm the teeth for anybody on here who suffers with depression or who has a family member who does. It was a disgusting thing to say about an illness I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Bluntness100 · 05/09/2018 19:37

I can't even recall what my daughter wanted to be at 3. Or 5. Or 10. I do recall her wishing to be a footballer at one stage and buying her a foot ball kit. I think that was about 4.

I certainly never looked at her in her little stripey tights, pig tails, and big nappy bottom, and thought "fuck me, that's a corporate lawyer right there"

Can't think why not...🤣

NotUmbongoUnchained · 05/09/2018 19:40

I will always encourage my children to aim high but ultimately it’s up to them.

ocelot41 · 05/09/2018 19:41

This is a reverse right? Or a joke?

heattreated · 05/09/2018 19:57

in an ideal world, a magic circle law firm or a big 4 accounting firm after graduating from cambridge or oxford. Grin

SpringSnow · 05/09/2018 20:00

And as for the pp who suggested that they'd rather have a depressed child than a happy one - no, you wouldn't. Your suggestion , imo, is obscene and a real kick I'm the teeth for anybody on here who suffers with depression or who has a family member who does. It was a disgusting thing to say about an illness I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. that poster should have though through that bit of virtue signalling.

CherryPavlova · 05/09/2018 20:33

I can’t help but think people are a little disingenuous saying ‘the children choose and I won’t intefere. I just want them to be happy’. (As if the rest of us want miserable, pale children chained to encyclopaedias throughout their childhood).
All parents manipulate and push children in certain directions- through the activities the take their children to from birth, the schools they choose, the friendships they encourage.

I was never going to have a professional footballer as we never took our children to football. The most our son ever did was have a bit of a playground kick around at primary. To reach professional level, you need years of practice and training. It wasn’t going to happen.
If you put your nursery child in a heavy metal tshirt, buy them drums and take them to festivals regularly they are likely to develop different aspirations and interests to a child who attends a uniformed nursery, learns violin and goes to church regularly. We all direct our children’s lives (unless we are negligent) but somehow it’s seen as unacceptable to acknowledge it.

BlaaBlaaBlaa · 05/09/2018 21:04

Parents are the biggest influence on young people's career decision making. It can be both positive ( encouragement) and negative ( pressure)
However, parents aren't always the best source of career guidance. They tend to want their children to follow a similar educational path to them and they tend to refer to job and sectors that were popular when they were young.

Mondschein · 05/09/2018 21:07

I have to agree with SpringSnow
I have depressions (they are under control now, but it's a daily fight) and it's one of the worst things on the world to hate yourself so much. I went through hell. If it had the only choice between my kids beeing a happy drug dealer or a depressed teacher, I would chose the drug dealer.

Bluntness100 · 05/09/2018 21:19

All parents manipulate and push children in certain directions- through the activities the take their children to from birth, the schools they choose, the friendships they encourage.
I was never going to have a professional footballer as we never took our children to football

As much as I understand what you're trying to say, I think you're stretching it too far, and past credibility, it takes more to be a professional footballer than your parents taking you to football and it takes more to be a violinist than to be given violin lessons. The child needs to want to do it and have ability. Schools offer these things anyway,

I got flute lessons. I was never going to be s professional flutist.

My sons friend is a scientist, she never took him to the science museum or has any interest there at all. My daughter is a lawyer, we didn't spend our weekends watching suits.

Who your parents are, the encouragement, thr opportunities you are given, can impact on your future yes, but as David Beckhams son will tell you, playing foot ball from an early age does not a footballer make.

InezGraves · 05/09/2018 21:24

I’m not sure that’s always true, Cherry. My parents left school at twelve and were very wary of what they saw as ‘over-education’ or ‘getting above your station’, and actively tried to steer me away from university. My mother desperately wanted me to be a hairdresser. My father wanted me to own a local shop. I ended up going to Oxford and becoming an academic. They’ve never understood it or approved.

leghairdontcare · 05/09/2018 21:27

I want DS (aged 4) to be head of the IMF and DH wants him to be a professional wrestler. Unfortunately, the latter seems more likely at the moment.

Lweji · 05/09/2018 21:40

I never wanted my DS to be a footballer (see F1 post), but he asked me to join a football team and kept asking. He's left the team now, after a few years, but, if he had kept interest and had the talent, I wouldn't prevent him from becoming a footballer. I'd just encourage him to continue studying to have options.

SpiritedLondon · 05/09/2018 21:43

I can remember once hearing a woman say to a little girl of 6 that she would need to learn how to write her full name so she would be able to sign on. It was so depressing.

I think cherry is partly right - children are going to be interested in the hobbies / subjects etc that they are exposed to. The issue comes when the child rebels against this - do the parents support a child who no longer wants to study the piano any more or decides that university is not for them? I would be so upset if my DD took up a course of study or career only because she felt it was expected by DH & me.

Rebecca36 · 05/09/2018 21:46

I'd love to know what the OP's daughter has decided about her future career.

When my son was four he wanted to be a singer and musician. He used to strum a toy guitar and sing into my mum's umbrella stand - and was a poser.

Tunnocks34 · 05/09/2018 22:08

I would prefer them went to university, but if they have a different career path then that is absolutely fine.

I was telling my son recently that he could be anything he wanted to be, a pilot, a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a fireman etc. He looked me in the eye and told me he wanted to to own a field and look after birds with broken wings!

Tunnocks34 · 05/09/2018 22:08

*they not them

Eponymous · 05/09/2018 22:18

My dd wants to be a vet. Or a hairdresser.
She thinks being a cat groomer might be a good compromise.

SpiritedLondon · 05/09/2018 22:18

tunnock aaah bless him - seems incredibly achievable. He’ll probably end up as a vet and you’ll end up forking out for 5 years at university.

MillieMoodleMog · 05/09/2018 22:45

I don’t care what mine end up doing as long as it pays enough to put me up in an exclusive and luxurious old people’s home.

Although I asked my 2 year old earlier what he wanted to be when he grows up and he said “a sausage”, so I’m not feeling very hopeful about his prospects tbh.

MojitoMonkey · 05/09/2018 22:47

My DS is a professional footballer - it's really not that bad! The club support him to study in his spare time, he's doing a job he loves, keeping fit, travelling, all whilst earning a decent wage and having an apartment paid for. What's there to be embarrassed about, unless people are thinking of lazy stereotypes?

SpiritedLondon · 05/09/2018 22:51

Bloody hell - I’d be thrilled if my child was a professional footballer ( and I don’t like it myself) . It must take a huge amount of practice and dedication to be successful. I don’t know what the objections would be? Maybe that there’s a short window to be successful .... or maybe a class thing?

KateMcD451 · 05/09/2018 22:54

*Cannot wait to hear what OP's 3 year old has decided she is going to be.

She said a model in another thread.*

A model?!? And she turned her nose up at the gaming industry Confused