Bobbo, sorry I am with the mum on this. Resilience is so important, especially in an uncertain world. Over the last decade or so I have met plenty of very successful City types. Some are fine, but others are bewilderingly one-dimensional, the worst making it obvious they judged people on the college you went to and the size of your annual bonus. (And worst still are those wives who appear to assign rank on the size of a husband's bonus.)
Equally we met people, worried they might be affected by the latest round of City redundancies, who would quietly ask about public sector prospects (and how we managed both the London mortgage and school fees without a City salary.)
So far DDs gap year is proving a great experience. After three or more years of ticking boxes for medical school, and the prospect of 40 or more years of studying or practicing medicine, I am so pleased she has a chance to do something very different. She is working very long hours at her internship and not being paid. (She volunteers for the evening and weekend work!) But she now knows what running a small business involves, she is picking up a whole lot of very different skills, at this point it suits her to do something non-academic, and she is having fun. If her Plan A career does not work out, and these things do happen, she will have a useful level of confidence and adaptability that will help her with a Plan B. In the same way as we have known City folk start small businesses, become musicians, go into teaching, or work for Housing Associations.
I worry that kids who have had admirable focus from quite an early age, whether it is a career in finance or medicine or whatever, might wake up one day and wonder whether they have made the right decision. A bit of time out, doing something difference, allows for perspective and a chance to review. Worse still might be to simply keep plodding along the same path, unaware of having made decisions on career choice, till retirement or redundancy.