To encourage my dd into high paying careers?

[AleaEim]

Silly and lighthearted since my dd is still a baby but lately I’ve been reflecting. DH and I come from disadvantaged backgrounds, we were never encouraged to go to uni or choose something well paid. It’s recently dawned on me (in my mid thirties) that all the wealthy or at least comfortable families I know seem to have chosen money over love for their jobs (or in some cases where my female friends with careers in the arts married men who were in finance) therefore they can afford to live in wealthy parts of London comfortably. I used to think that I’d encourage my DD to chase her dreams but now I’m thinking it’s money she needs to chase which is sad because it goes against my values. I just don’t want her to struggle like we did/ do. We live in a small place, and have very little disposable income. We’re moving up in our roles gradually but we’ll never be loaded as I’m in the public sector and DH in hospitality.

Not unreasonable at all. But with AI, the high paying jobs of today will not be those of the future.

Big finance and legal companies are cutting staff and reducing graduate intake due to AI. Most people are being told to learn a trade, but then there may be an influx of tradesmen!

Encourage them to find something they love. Financial success in any industry is hard to predict for 10/20 years time!

You can encourage her to chase her dreams whilst preparing for a back up. Who’s to say her dreams won’t be realistic or that she won’t be successful at them? Her dream might be to travel and you can support her chasing that dream by pointing her to careers that will help her save for that. The main thing is to encourage her to go for things and to try hard for what she wants rather than settling for what’s easy.

I was very disadvantaged growing up and have spent the majority of my life being poor.
i have 3 sons and their Dad my ex wasn’t a very nice man and thankfully after we split up I did meet a lovely man who is also a professional man and has encouraged me to follow my ambitions as well as supporting my youngest son as he was still young when we got together.
We were talking at dinner one evening and he said how proud I must be to have had 2 sons go to university as a single mum with my background- my youngest son who was at uni at the time said ‘ it was expected of us to do well, we always knew that we would go to college and be professionals - she moulded us like that and even my brother who didn’t go to uni (he went to live with his dad/—waste of space—) was and always has been employed.
looking back I did want them to break the barrier of poverty and I like to think that it will enhance their lives and any children they have to be able to do all the things I aspire to do/become at the natural age.

I wouldn’t say I’m forcing my dreams on them, I’d say I’m relieving them of my nightmares.

Ideally her interests and money will align. For example if she’s good at maths then there’s lots of lucrative careers that use numbers. They could be careers that aren’t even invented yet so I’m not being more specific but the point still stands. Encouraging a career that pays well is better than encouraging her to marry rich as she’d have more choices and power in the first instance.

What do you mean by loaded? And why do you think you'll never be in a well paid role in the public sector or hospitality? Don't set barriers for yourself by assuming you can't do it. There's well paid roles in every single sector if you're willing to work hard and have ambition. If you want to help your child to have a successful career, the best thing you can do for them is teach them independence and self discipline whilst setting them a good example yourselves.

You encourage both, but mostly to do something they love. Then you help them consider careers where they can use what they love to make decent money.

No issues at all. I see people on MNs in their 50s still earnings only in the 30-35k. What wants that for their kids?

OP my parents encouraged me to do well at school. They were strict about homework and because they both did lower paying manual jobs during my earlier years, I saw how hard they worked and how financially tough life can be. I went into a well paid job in an industry that pays well. It has stood me in good stead. I was diagnosed with a life limiting illness in my childhood and I knew that physically I could not do a manual job. I am blessed that medical innovation (and the wonderful NHS) has meant that I am now in my early fifties (with hopefully more years to come) and this year I have dropped to very part time working. More importantly, I educated myself on pensions and how to invest in the stock market. This financial discipline over 30 years has enabled me to go into semi retirement. Even modest investments over a 25-30 year period can yield significant returns.

My parents were open and honest with me and my sibling about the reality of life and the cost of living. This opened our eyes to the reality of life.

Ooh I never thought of this.

That’s great about your children. Do you mind me asking how you encouraged them? I don’t want to be overbearing but also want to guide xx (firmly).

I think you just need to be realistic with them about what kind of job they’ll need to afford the lifestyle they’ll want.

No, don’t terrorise them into accountancy or law - but also help them to understand that x jobs pay y, and y jobs pay x.

As another poster said - the world will look different by the time they are adults, so you may not understand the career options they select to make money…!

I am so rubbish at understanding pensions, this is something I want to learn more about. Have you any tips?

Yes encouraged both mine to use their maths skills to earn good money. DS just started his graduate job in the city this week. I’ve a civil servant, and I enjoy it, but never going to earn big bucks.

Errr, yes. What else would you do. As opposed to what? Encouraging her into low paid careers. Or not encouraging her at all?

Instead of just chasing her dreams, like it says in the OP

Encourage a love of learning. For too many children their parents see no point in education and learning for the joy of it. If you enjoy learning, then there are more opportunities open to you.

You need to strike a balance - something they can enjoy that earns them enough and is fairly secure against AI

no one really should need to be loaded to have enough money to enjoy their life and feel secure - imagine if you had say 10 or 20% more than you do ? Would that give you enough ?

I could have earned more - I could have earned MN big - but I loved my job , felt it made a difference to the world and I could save something most years

whilst I didn’t live large - no fancy handbags and only a few foreign holidays - we did a lot of camping / cheap holidays and loved life

so not all children need to chase big bucks to be happy in life. Too little money makes life too hard , but there is a point at which most people can be happy without selling their soul

wdit to add - I did encourage DD to see certain dreams as lifelong hobbies as opposed to career routes …

I honestly would be careful with advising on careers that are currently high paid as they may well not be in the future, once AI takes over many of these careers.

I will be encouraging my dc to get to grips with understanding AI as I am sure it's going to be a huge part of their future careers.

It doesn't always have to be one or the other. I think people will be more likely to succeed and progress well in a career they're passionate about. Achieving dreams isn't always what you think it will be anyway. My dream was to be a social worker. I achieved it which felt great initially but now I wish I'd done something in finance. The stress and emotional toll is immense and I will never be wealthy.

I think one of the biggest things you can do is to encourage a love of books and reading.

This. You don't need to be worrying about exactly what job she's going to be doing or how much she's going to earn. She just needs to be encouraged into having a love of learning to keep as many options as possible open to her.

It's going to be a pretty miserable life though if she's just chasing the money doing something she hates.

Yes this. Importance of early savings and compound interest e.g. £50 a month into a global tracker fund for a child between ages of 0 and 18 (so about a £10k investment over 18 years) could give them a pension pot of £500k to £1m in real terms AFTER adjusting for inflation.

This too. Read to her every day at least once, preferably more. Start now if you haven't already. Then listen to her read every day when she's at school.

I don’t think I was pushy, but we always did homework together from a young age-anything they were interested in, I followed up with stuff you could do at home.
i did home educate my youngest until he was 12 and the older 2 for a couple of years.
im not super intelligent myself so I’m not stealth boasting but we used to have to walk a lot and we used to make up stories and I just tried to make everything a learning experience - so we’d go to the cemetery for a walk and the children would try and find the oldest graves or oldest people or realise there’s been a group of deaths and we’d look into it a bit more (illnesses etc) my eldest and youngest enjoyed history so they would talk to Grandad a lot and I think tbh I was learning a lot alongside them, my middle son who wasn’t academic but it fabulous with his hands at fixing things and is a great people person was encouraged with Lego and things.
i would find people by accident with skills and they would pass things on - one example was the man in the local post office he had a degree in chemistry and we’d had a horrible science set where you mixed together some chemicals and put it in the included plastic volcano and a reaction happened so it looked like the volcano erupted …. He told us how to do it ourselves (I think it was vinegar and bicarbonate)so we made a paper mache volcano and a large quantity of the chemicals and, obviously papier mache isn’t as strong as plastic so the whole thing went with a bang and my ceiling was stained for years ( it was recorded on a little recorder my son had and all you can hear is me shouting stand back whilst we were all wearing swimming goggle - because safety first !!)
And if I’m really honest I think I put the fear of God into them about poverty and the importance of a career- I lived in a rented house and every time the land lord came I was petrified he would want his house back.

Well thr popular thing on here seems to help them get ready for bagging a husband and giving up work so you raise children then in turn help with grandchildren personally though I would encourage any child to habe their own plan and fulfil that