Does anyone feel annoyed that their parents didn’t provide more support and guidance regarding education and careers?

[peaprotein]

I’m late thirties and have been living my life on autopilot, up until recently when I’ve had my own child and started questioning my own upbringing. I would like to think I’ve always had above average intelligence and real potential (at least that’s what my teachers said). My Dad was educated, and the breadwinner and had a very demanding career so wasn’t involved in our upbringing too much. My Mom is not educated at all and her dream was to have children. However, I now reflect and think she was quite a poor parent in many respects. I can elaborate on that further but she is very cold, unloving and critical to say the least. The one thing that bothers me the most though is that she never stressed the importance of a good education or career. She did not want me to go to university, said it wasn’t necessary and she knew many people who had been successful without going and encouraged me to apply for an apprenticeship which was well below my means. From then I have just continued to have very basic jobs and have had little life experience as in our culture you live with your parents until you get married which I didn’t do until my thirties. So I haven’t really known any better or different. Throughout my life she has compared me to others and how successful their careers have been which has always left me feeling rubbish. Forgetting that those people will have been parented very differently to me and had different opportunities and experiences. Now that I have my own child I am thinking about their future, and it has hit me that my Mom did next to nothing to nurture any talents or ability I had. At this point I don’t feel sorry for myself as I know I can and will begin to make changes as I am now so much more aware of certain things. But I’m still a bit miffed that ultimately my life could look very different career wise if she had provided me with better guidance and support. I know she was doing the best she could in many respects and I believe she too was raised by a very critical and unloving father so I see where this all comes from, still a bit of a tough pill to swallow though.

Yanbu. I'm 47 and my parents never advised me on a thing. Mum later said she assumed school did it all. Bit late then sadly.

My teens are advised non stop by me .

I think it's unfair to blame parents or anyone else for your life choices by the time you get to your late thirties, frankly.

And it's very difficult to advise teenagers on 'career paths'. If you didn't know what you wanted to do in life, why the hell should your mother have done?

I think OP you have to start taking responsibility for your own life choices as an adult.

My dd1 did an apprenticeship as she hated 6th form. She always wanted bigger and better and now works in Dubai and travels the world for her profession.

Once your an 18 it really is on you. Maybe you just didn’t have that drive to better yourself.

But in a lot of ways your mum was right....going to uni does not guarantee success and people who have done apprenticeships have done very well.

I did go to uni, but I haven’t progressed very much in my career at all. Most of the people I work with don’t have degrees so they are earning as much as me.

I didn’t have good career advice and decided when I was 14 I was going to be a lawyer. However I wasn’t a top grade student and didn’t realise that you needed really good grades to get anywhere in law. I got Cs in my A levels and went to an ex-poly. I didn’t know there was a difference in universities. Nobody told me this stuff.

I probably would have done much better if I’d just gone into training instead e.g legal executive or paralegal. I didn’t have good enough grades for a training contract to be a solicitor and I was too highly educated with a degree to be a legal executive. Rock & hard place.

So now I’m in banking.

Tbh whatever route you take, I think confidence, being able to communicate & knowing how to network makes the most difference. Sadly I’ve been very shy and reserved so this has held me back a lot.

My parents were from India so they didn’t have a clue about how to advise me.

There is just so much more information available now it’s amazing. My DS is in year 8 and we’ve already looked at uni prospectus to see what he needs for his chosen career path (IT).

I think the main problem here is your relationship with your mother. I’m 43 and not given up yet and you’re still young too

My parents offered no advice at all. How could they? They left school at 13/14 and had worked ever since. My father was bright, very bright. But he had to work and, despite winning a scholarship to grammar school, couldn't go because his mother couldn't pay for the uniform. They had no idea about university or professional careers, they had never had the opportunity to learn.
But what they did was to be proud of me, they didn't tell me what to do but they encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. My sister and I both won scholarships to fee paying grammar schools and my parents were incredibly proud. They couldn't help us with our homework, by the time we were at secondary school it was probably beyond them( although my father could work out compound interest at a phenomenal rate- he was a money lender!) When we both applied to university they had no idea of the process, university life or anything connected. The choice was ours, the responsibility was ours but, by 18 I would expect nothing less!

TheHungryLady in your case it is the university who sold you a false hope imo.

I see a lot of kids going to less well regarded institutions ( now sometimes a particular course is well respected by employers I know) and I wonder if they are given honest expectations of careers.

I’ve always felt this and worried I was the only one!

Mine were very keen on me pursuing a university degree but in no way attempted to explore what I wanted during school, nor consider my attributes or long-term thoughts about career options. I owe them such a lot, but if I’d had a bit more guidance from a younger age I may not have drifted around like a fart in a trance for so long.

With my own two kids I’ll definitely be exploring career options with them from a young age, and help identify what they want out of life. Not in a pushy way but just to provide focus.

I do get a sort of retrospective envy when I see some of the university threads on here, where parents are so ambitious for and invested in their children’s education and future careers. In my imagination it must make decision-making much easier if you’re an 18 year old who doesn’t know what they want; to have a parent who knows the difference between a Russell Group and a former poly, and knows exactly how many UCAS points you need for law etc.

My parents were only like this for my oldest brother, because he was following my dad’s career path. For my other brother and me, it was “do what makes you happy dear, you choose!” And left to my own devices, I made some crap choices. I know that I can’t actually blame anyone but myself though. And in 20 years time some of the children of the mumsnet-oxbridge-aspirant threads will probably be complaining online that their parents micromanaged them and didn’t let them make their own screw-ups.

I find it something positive that I made my own mistakes. I thought things through and thought I knew my own mind but I got some parts wrong.
I can't blame my parents for any of my course choices or career decisions and that's not a bad situation to be in.

Two things:

1. to a greater or lesser degree with all carry our parents' baggage and mistakes with us, it is for us to try and break that cycle.

2. Brene Brown (look her up, she's ace) wrote it's always worth assuming people are doing their best even if they fall woefully short. It helps you accept their failings and deal with them on based on who they are not who you want them to be.

For example, my MIL has woefully low emotional intelligence, if I expect her to be compassionate or interested in me, I will be repeatedly disappointed. If I accept she is giving me as much compassion as she is able, then I'm not as frustrated that she didn't provide it. Initially it's a bit depressing, but I've now accepted her for who she is and have a relationship based on that, which means she is much less likely to hurt me.

@skirk64

I've long blamed school and their careers advice more than my parents. The message they kept telling us at school was "work hard and you'll succeed." Utter bullshit, hard work does not mean success. (It's hard to get success without working for it, but working hard for success doesn't mean it will come.)

They drummed into us how important it was to go to university - how it would give us an advantage all our lives. Again, utter nonsense. People I know left school at 16 and went to work, bought their own home about the time I was finishing university and got on the property ladder about ten years before I could. They'll be mortgage-free by their late 40s, I'll be mortgage-free by my late 60s.

It's more important to start work as soon as you can than to go to university. It's feasible for a 16yo school-leaver to have earned 80K or more by the time a 21yo leaves university. That is a massive head start, even if the graduate earns a couple of thousand a year more it will take most of their working life to catch up.

It depends on the profession to be honest. Some you require a degree for. I still managed to save and buy (worked before and through uni) and couldn't have my job without my degree which has given me access to much more money than I expect I wouldve earned otherwise when compared with the friends of mine from school who left at 16. The only ones I know in a similar position married well to be honest. I do agree though that uni isn't for everyone nor is it required for every role and for many people getting stuck into work would've been better where they've ended up in a normal 9-5 anyway

There comes a point where the problem becomes "waiting around for my mother to slap me in the face" and not "my mother slaps me in the face".

I think you've arrived at that point.

The good news is that you seem to realise that.

Now you have work to do. Talk to a counselor about the effect of your mother's negativity. Do some reading around the subject. You need to work on your boundaries. It won't be pleasant, but you need to do it.

Go online to OU and browse courses. It's not too late for you to take flight!

I had really supportive parents by my DH didn't. He was quite bright but no one cared or encouraged him. He was only expected to get an apprenticeship and his parents were surprised he didn't get a manual job.

He's done ok for himself but he is limited in his career as he only has a few GCSEs. We both support and encourage our children to study and explain their options, uni , college, or apprenticeship

On the contrary, my dad was far too involved and ended up convincing me away from the two things I really wanted to do.

@Frymetothemoon

I'm sorry but that's all very well if you've had a loving upbringing. At 45, I'm only just realising just how much damage the poor parenting I received has caused. My mother was abusive, my father emotionally absent. In theory I was free at 18, when I moved out, but in reality the emotional entrapment lasted much longer, and was then followed by a period or recovery and finding who I really was.

I was the product of a violent, abusive and neglectful household who eventually grew up in the care system.

I was put out at 17 with £20 to fend for myself as was the tendency for care leavers back then. I vowed that none of the adults in my life would ever have any effect on my future.

I have plenty of people to blame for my life. But that's giving them power and agency. My life is fab, exactly what I want it to be. The only person who has power over your future is you.

I dunno, for every person who says their DPs weren't involved enough, there'll be another person who says their DPs were too involved so it's hard to know what's best really.

Yes. Now I'm nearing 50 I feel quite bitter about this, as does my sibling. Despite very successful school lives, my ambitions to train as a vet and my sister's acceptance at a top university were met with indifference by our 'parents', who were too busy with their social lives and affairs to be inconvenienced by our needs. Our emotionally abusive 'people pleasing' childhood had the effect of driving me to the pub by the time I was in my mid teens, while my very talented sister drifted without any kind of plan. All those wasted years.

After a lot of effort I have a wonderful new career now (as does my sister), working with people half my age and I look on in wonder at how accomplished they are already. I'm so impressed by all of them, despite knowing this is probably normal. My own DD has my full support and guidance and is very focused and driven (and happy) as a result, so I hope my own experience can at least be used to help her.

Yes. Neither of my parents worked when I was a child, we always lived on benefits. They never encouraged us to go to school- we would quite often go with them to the job centre and wait in the waiting area whilst they signed on. I didn’t do well in exams at school so university was never an option for me. I’ve only ever worked in very low paid admin/reception jobs but despite this I have always enjoyed the jobs I’ve done and have felt proud that I’ve been able to earn my own money (even if it wasn’t very much). I’m an SAHM and have been since my dc were born and it does make me sad that in a way I’ve just repeated what my parents did by not working (my dh works though so at least they are seeing one parent going out to work). My eldest is 8 now and whilst I’m not giving her careers advice I talk to her about different jobs and what different people that we know do. I don’t blame my parents at all because i am responsible for my life and have been an adult for many years now (I’m 35) but I do feel sad that I spent my childhood the way I did though and that I didn’t have any help with my education

For me personally my school life was far to interrupted, my dad was in the army, we moved around every 2 to 3 years and I could never settle, by the time my GCSE's came around, i just couldnt be bothered anymore!

Although my parents where loving, I really hated my childhood, and even now when I look back on it, it fills me with anger, by the time I had made friends, and got close to them, they either moved away or we did, didnt have Facebook growing up to keep in contact, I'm now in my 30s with no close friends, or friends in general, bar work colleagues

My parents didn't give me advice because they are working class. They thought that if you go to university (any university, they're all the same and all springboards to a high flying career) you will come out and earn loads of money. I think they're still disappointed that I don't.

I know now that it doesn't work like that and I do have an idea how it does work but it's taken me years to suss out.

Looking at the young graduates coming into the workforce now it seems to be fairly common for the working class ones to be similarly clueless and without any useful connections.

In fact for a lot of working class people a degree - especially from a less good university - is more of a hindrance than a help.

Interesting. I was never pushed with school work. Ended up with 3 GCSEs. I did resit and eventually got to university in my 40s. I don't really regret not going at 19 (I applied but didn't bother going) because my subject choice wasn't vocational and it meant I had the funding available for this time around. If I'd been pushed I wonder if it would have made any difference.
Anyway, now I'm a parent of two extremely bright boys who don't care about exam results and I do stress the importance of qualifications however I don't push them. I would rather they work for a bit, earn and they will either work their way up or realise what they really want to do in their own time.
My biggest regret is expecting that I would get married and have someone to buy a house with. Because that's what most of my peer group did. Not of them has bought a house alone. I wish I'd taken responsibility for my own future much sooner than I did. I wish someone had told me that life isn't a fairytale. Whether I would have listened is another matter.
I do tell my nieces and friends daughters never to rely on a man for the future and to earn as much as possible.
Anyway I digressed a bit

I sympathise, I was born in the 80s, the child of first generation immigrants who couldn’t advise their kids if they wanted to, as they hadn’t been to uni themselves. I did go to uni, because people around me were, but wish I’d understood about grad schemes and career paths.

I’m happy with my career now, but I’ve sleepwalked into it. I feel like I could have had more opportunities if I’d had more information.

My family had a strong work ethic, but not for education or progression. They expected us all to leave school ASAP and get some minimum wage job. Growing up, I was told that any job that involved being sat down (office work) was bad. Hence, only 2 out my extended family have a degree education.

Lol I guess the class thing can hit you in lots of ways. My parents thought that office work was an odyssey of middle class professionalism. For their generation it would have been.

Ofc now the average admin/call centre worker earns half as much as a train driver.

I only did my homework as I knew I’d get in trouble if I didn’t. I didn’t need my parents to tell me that.
My dps were too invested in my db and sending him to uni to bother with me. They kept encouraging him to do well and I got forgotten about. I’d ask to join Brownies and was met with a flat no. If my db asked to join a club like karate they’d fall over themselves to accommodate him.
Both our dps worked but there was no guidance for me. I couldn’t wait to get my first job, part time whilst at college so I could earn some money.
I then gained independence and bought my own house and started to please myself. Even at college my dps weren't encouraging.