Lessons

from here

We had dinner with our neighbour last night, and heard of how she’d wanted to study nursing after school but her mother had told her she probably wouldn’t be able to do it and suggested she work in an office instead. She ended up working for a bank, and hating it. Even if our neighbour wasn’t aware of and open about the fact that she still wishes she’d at least given nursing a go, it would be obvious from the simple fact that I’ve now heard that story at least three times over the two years we’ve been living next door to her.

The moral of this story: Don’t discourage your child from studying what she wants to, or she’ll regret her choice for a really long time.

A good friend from school loved music, and wanted to take time off after school to write and record some songs. His mother let him know that as long as he wanted to live in their house he was going to study teaching because teaching would get him paid, and being a musician probably wouldn’t. He is now a very good primary school teacher. I think of that story with a little envy; I wish someone had said to me, “Linguistics shminguistics! You won’t find much work studying something like that!” But in a nice way. And then sat down with me and a UAC guide and helped me figure out the type of course I was really looking for and not just the one that sounded like it’d be kinda sorta interesting.

The moral of this story: Discourage your child from studying what she wants to, or she’ll regret her choice for a really long time.