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.

@Memedru My childhood was the same. My father was in the diplomatic service and because he was a 'troubleshooter' we got moved around the world alot (one memorable year we moved countries 3 times). Like you, when I got to O levels (early 80s, I'm in my 50s) I just about gave up. Back then schools were far more lax at contacting parents so you could skip school and nothing would happen.

Also like you I hated my childhood - my parents didn't want to be parents in the first place and as we got older made it clear how much they resented the constraints it put on their lives...particularly when our education started to be badly affected. Friends - I have one close friend, my ex H who I'm still friendly with, and my now partner. That's it. I do feel quite a lot of jealousy towards people who have friends stretching back to their childhood.

@Longdistance

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.

That’s terrible. How are they with you now? Did DB become successful?

My parents were always distantly encouraging about school and college but without any real enthusiasm or guidance. My dad had a series of intermittent jobs and mum was a SAHM.

Their key life advice for me was to get my name on the council and HA lists ASAP to get a house. Even ten years after we bought our house, they'd still tut over how silly we were to saddle ourselves, how the HA would take care of all repairs etc if we'd got a house with them, we'd have been much better off etc etc.

I absolutely feel the same as you op.
I’m 43 without anything further than GCSEs.
My parents had no involvement with anything last primary school. I got my own job at 13 and since then pretty much had nothing but average paid jobs.
I feel so sad they didn’t push me to do anything in further education. Keep questioning why didn’t they. Pretty much left me to my own devices.
My eldest is nearly 18 and finishing A levels. I am encouraging him so much to go to Uni and fulfill what he wants to do and also with my next child who wishes to become a lawyer and starting 6th form.
There no way I want them growing wishing I had helped them achieve more.

I had an educated dad and a mum who was actually very creative/artistic but put herself down and called herself dumb.
Neither encouraged any of us. We had no help with homework, they were extremely impatient with my older siblings and had long given up by the time us younger ones needed help. I was in the top 3 kids in class for quite a few subjects but it was ignored and have done pretty well for myself in spite of my parents. Two of my siblings haven't worked for years and one has always worked part time, apart from me only one has ever worked full time.
We could have all gone to university like my cousins whose parents encouraged their education.

I would say for myself and my children total opposite. My parents encouraged me and I encouraged my children and maybe long run it has helped I don't know. What I do know is I didn't really want their guidance like all teenagers I thought I knew better than them, and my children were exactly the same. And like most parents mine supported me in MY decisions and I have done the same with my children even if those decisions are not ones the parents in each case would have made or wanted the child to make. And if I had followed their advice life would have been different. I may have landed a well paid high flying job, but then I wouldn't have met my partner and wouldn't have had my kids, who of course my parents adore.
So horses for courses and so on, if your parents loved you and supported you, let you grow and make your own choices I think that's pretty good.

Same here op, it was my friend who spoke to be about university and helped me apply at college. I also failed some GCSEs in school and again it was my friend who said I’d be able to retake them in college which I did. I’m pretty sure I’m dyslexic but my parents never got me any support for it.

No - I was perfectly able myself to make decisions about my life by the time I left school at 16.

Honestly, adults in their 30s and older blaming their parents for the way their lives have turned out. Pathetic.

I think it’s terribly unfair that are unspoken barriers to certain professions that those not “in the know” wouldn’t realise. I had a paralegal who had a degree in American studies. I knew that was a decent degree and she was a good candidate but the partners wouldn’t even consider her for a traineeship . If she had done English or history she would have been in.

I'm the opposite actually. I told my parents what I wanted to do but my Dad knew better. I wanted to do Art and Drama GCSEs but was told I wouldn't get a job with those. He picked my subjects and I was forced to do Geography and a subject I can't even recall (I got 9 GCSEs but can only remember 6 of them and have no clue what the grades were back in the 80s). He then abandoned the family for a woman 2 years older than my brother and left us all to our own fates, no doubt patting himself on the back for installing our great educational foundations.

Advice is only as good as the mentor, in your case your Mother. I too find it odd that you blame the person least equipped to support you and not your father who had the knowledge you sought but chose to withhold it from you. However, like my father, he may have mentored you to be a facsimile of himself which wouldn't have been right as you are not him.

You are the expert on you. You know what you enjoy doing and what you are good at (there's usually a correlation between the two). There's lots of careers advice online, Barclays Life Skills may be aimed at a younger audience but is a good place to start and the government's National Careers Service could help you explore career options.

It's time to take ownership and agency for your own life and start planning forward. When your daughter hits 13, listen to her, support her in what she's good at and what she enjoys. The Kabil Gibran poem, On Children, sums this up beautifully...

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

I don’t think blaming others for areas of your life you are unhappy about is an easy option but not all that helpful, to be blunt

Rogue don’t in that sentence, I mean blaming others is easy but unhelpful

Yes/no. I wish I'd had more advice but they weren't really the people to give it and they were supportive about my education and the decisions I made.

My mum warned me against learning to touch type which is advice that hadnt aged well but was valuable at the time.

Absolutely. Despite getting good A'levl results - going to Uni at 18 was never offered/ suggested as an option. Probably about five people from our sixth form went to Uni straight form school. I wish I hadn't gone into Nursing at 18. I turned 18 in the June, started my training in the September and went straight onto the wards - the first patient I ever touched ( did a bed bath with the tutor present) died during the bed bath, there was no debrief, no checking we were ok, nothing. I was way way unprepared and wish I had been warned or got some life experience first. traumatic experiences at such a young age have hugely affected me. My 16 year old dd wants to be a paramedic and i am literally begging her to go into it later.

I had no guidance or support for schooling and had to get a full time job at 16 so I could pay board for living at home.