So tell me, are your parents the least bit interested in what you do for a living?

[Twinklemegan]

Because I'm feeling a little pissed off with mine to be honest. I have just completed a major project, very successfully I think, and I asked my mum and dad to take a look at the results and give me honest feedback.

Well after speaking to my dad I felt like they were only looking at it because they felt a duty. They hadn't even explored the most obvious bits (it's a website) and my mum was hassling my dad to get off the internet because she wanted to watch their holiday video.

Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit more interest in a whole year of my blood sweat and tears? I really hoped that such a visible aspect of my work would be of more interest to them tbh.

I wish they wouldn't take an interest.

My mother calls me a failure cos I don't work 80 hours a week in a top end job earning a fortune. To them a career is the be all and end all of your life and who you are.

I love my job and am happy with it. And I get to spend time with my son and look after him myself.

Mine are a bit variable. They have pictures of my sisters graduation up at their house but when I showed them the pictures of mine they didn't want any.

When I started the course my mums only comment was "I don't know why you're starting that, you'll only give up". I still don't know what prompted that, I hadn't given up on courses before.

My DP and are both lawyers (different fields) and some family members will always ask his advice even though the (free!) advice they want is my area not his.

They're interested up to a point now - they usually like to hear about my famous clients (I don't have that many, but some are v. well known) or funny stories. Any they like getting free advice!

hmm. they didn't come to my (eventual)graduation (although they went to my sister's diploma thing)- i think they still harboured a grudge against me dropping out the first time. actually, not a grudge - i think they never forgave me and were gutted (first one in the family to go to uni and then jacked it in half way through first year)...
work - tricky to tell - my dad always makes a joke about the national secrets so he doesn't have to get involved in it, and my mum barely talks at all.
lol at ll - dh has reached the same rank as his dad now, so there's no pressure. they do still talk for hours about work though - and actually the mil and dil ask me more about my work than my parents do.
but i don't think i mind - they are interested in the kids...

No.

'What magazine is it you work at again?' said my father the other day. My mum looked all embarrassed. I scowled at both of them, quite aware that she doesn't buy it either.

It annoys me.

Used to be a very sore point with me.

Didn't come to graduation: 'What is it - it's just a ceremony isn't it?'. Oh - a bit like marriage then...

And all drive to have an interesting job was deeply dissaproved of.

Me: I'm really bored with my job.

Mum: Do you think I like my job? Do you think your father likes his job? Who are you that you should like your job?

I wish they could have 'got it' - that I really wanted and needed interesting work - never mind the work itself.

Yes and no, its an everlasting competition for my mum, if I have had a bad day hers is worse, if I am tired she is more tired because no job will ever be any where near as hard as hers. So I generally don't talk about it.

In saying that I have no idea what my dad's job is, he has explained it loads but I still don't understand

I'm a teacher, which I love and I was the first in the whole family to go to University. However, my brother has a much better, much more well paid job...and I often hear my mum on the phone saying things like 'oh yeah, she's still just a teacher....'. A little frustrating that, especially as have also just got a decent promotion, to which her response was 'that means no grandchildren for another couple of years then...' - cheers mum!

actually - on the graduation thing... when i dropped out they made me go to the doctor to see if i was mental. their way of putting it, not mine... i turned up to the doc and had to explain to her that i had dropped out of uni for x, y and z reasons, and my parents wanted her to check i didn't need sectioning or anything. i'm not sure who was more embarassed tbh, although later discovered a (swept under the carpet) history of mental illness in the family, which at least explained the paranoia...

ss - i bet all your friends want to know the more intimate details...

My parents are no longer around, but I know that they were very proud of me..

They definately saw salary as a sign of sucess, and I didn't earn a fortune at all, but to them it was a lot of money. My brother earnt approx 3 x me so obviously he was far more sucessful!... [hmmm]

I think my mum was proudest of me when I gave up work after having DD so maybe she didn't get it at all?

Littlelapin - thanks for the thought, but I'd really risk "outing" myself. It's a pretty specialist area. I haven't actually done the really tecchie web development bit myself - I've been driving through the project, providing specifications, preparing the masses & masses of content & writing all the other stuff that's on the site.

The site actually launched today, pretty successfully I think. Journalists, photos etc. - tres embarrassing!

Parents were happy and "proud" to hear me on the radio .

When I got promoted last month and told my mother, she gave me a huge hug and said "congratulations darling". Then after about 5 minutes she confessed that she had absolutely no idea what I did. At all. I tried explaining, but she was clearly baffled. So I don't think we'll be pursuing that line of conversation again.

Interesting, all this.

I have to do (at the end of this month, & with my 3 siblings) a bit of an Appreciation at our parents' Golden Wedding, and one of things I was thinking of talking about was their support & curiously self-less interest in what we all do (or, even more relevantly, decided not to do).

Eg my sister - very very miserable early on in a medicine degree - remembers them coming into her room to say "you know ... if you really don't enjoy this ..." And the thing she specifically remembers was that they were holding each other's hand.

And I had a great big false start with many years of a doctorate which got abandoned - and then went to law school instead. It was only after all that that Dad quietly said "I did always think you should have been a lawyer."

And one of my brothers said the other day that he felt that none of us siblings felt we'd got any more or less support than any of the others.

(Now all I have to do is write the damn speech.)

i think you have!

No.

Far from being interested, my mother pretends she doesn't know I have a job. I will frequently have a conversation with her where she will say: "I phoned you today, where were you?"

Um, at work, where lots of people are at 2 o'clock in the effing afternoon.

Or she will ask if I have been to the park with the kids today. Er no, they have been in holiday club, I have been at work. Have you forgotten about me having to earn my living again?

Message withdrawn

lol sore point with me this, my parents don't really seem to care about what I do because my brother is a genius (really, he is ) and anything I do seems crappy in comparison! They didn't come to my graduation or anything, and I used to get upset when I was younger because they never cared when I did well at school. I'm not that bothered anymore because I'm working for myself really, not for them.

Hmmm, mine come acroos as fairly uninterested in what I do. Because of that, I don't tell them very much about it, so it gets a bit circular/self fulfilling.

It's quite funny, because I do the sort of job and have gone the sort of route your parents are supposed to be proud of (degree from Oxford/partner in law firm). They are fairly soft left Guardian reader-types and I think they find me possibly a bit...embarassing - certainly I think they would perk up a bit if I had been one of those Tibetan protestors at the Olympics

We also have - objectively speaking - quite a difference in ability and attainment between us siblings and my parents spent a lot of my childhood making sure I didn't feel like I was overly clever in case it made my siblings feel over-looked.

So I think from an early age I stopped doing things bcause I wanted parental approval. Which is actually quite a good thing, all in all.

No, my dad couldn't give a toss, but then neither could I.