<p>I want to know how parents mold their children into something. I have some ideas for my son!</p>
<p>“making your kid a doctor”? “molding these pre-pre-meds”? Really?"</p>
<p>Well, in fairness there are kids on CC who do indicate their parents are pushing them towards certain careers – typically medicine or engineering. But, there’s no way to know if any given kid is indeed “molded” or naturally going there without, well, asking them in person, which none of us can do. </p>
<p>When my daughter graduated last month, we noticed at the ceremony that the accounting kids all had jobs at top firms where I know they will make excellent money. Even more so than the engineers, who were the next most employed group. Additionally, my D1’s best friend and her fiancee are both CPAs at a top firm and at age 26 have been pre-approved for a housing purchase of $750,000 based on income and savings. Of course, being financially prudent, they are looking for something less than half that price with rental income. With all of this, I have been whispering the words CPA into my son’s ear. Does this count as molding because I’m all about that.</p>
<p>There are some kids at our church who are pre-med. Their parents are doctors…</p>
<p>CPA is the way to go</p>
<p>My D and her boyfriend are both CPAs. I think it’s a great career for the right kind of person - detail-oriented, organized, and not afraid of working 15-hour days during busy season. MY D really likes the work and the people with whom she works.</p>
<p>Lately, my D has mentioned that she thinks it’s also a good career for women who want to work part-time once they have a family. I wonder if she’s signaling something about her BF?</p>
<p>H and I definitely did not mold her because as scientists, the thought of accounting was never on our radar screens.</p>
<p>Yeah, no. My son is a musician and tends to be high on the flighty scale, so . . .</p>
<p>My son is doing very well at one of the most hated companies in America. I don’t think he would have made a good doctor. My daughter is an Episcopal priest. She did marry a doctor, so there’s that…</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Lots of people go to college for 7 years.</p></li>
<li><p>Yeah, they’re called doctors!</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There definitely are parents pushing their kids to be doctors, but this is nothing new. I once roomed with a senior who was having long emotional arguments with her parents on the phone every day. She really did not want to go to med school. I’m not sure how they pushed her into it in the end but I know she dropped out after the first semester or year. That was probably a pretty expensive way to resolve the dispute.</p>
<p>Hey, Zoosermom, my D originally entered accounting so she could become a business manager for an indie record company (loved emo/punk but wasn’t musically inclined herself). She figured that accounting would keep her close to the bands she loved even though she can’t carry a tune.</p>
<p>My DS wants to be a doctor and is currently applying to medical school. I sure wouldn’t want to be a doctor so I definitely didn’t push him in that direction. He’s always been interested in medicine. I reminded him when he started college that he might change his mind and find another career that he would want to pursue and I made sure he knew that was perfectly fine and he should find his passion. He stuck with the pre-med track. I’ll let you know how it turns out! </p>
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<p>I think there are many parents who are doctors who are questioning whether this is the right thing to do for their children. You’re in a business where what you can charge is subject to regulation, and typically paid for by some one other than the person to whom you’re rendering the service. This is not necessarily the recipe for happiness and contentment.</p>
<p>Parents obviously have influence over their kids career choices, but in the end its the children who make or break themselves, and who choose in what arenas to do that. </p>
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<p>I’m going to cook meth when I grow up! </p>
<p>My wife and I are both docs and we’ve been fortunate to have wonderful careers. Medicine is interesting and often rewarding work and we’ve been paid well along the way. Problems? Absolutely, but show me a field that has none. We feel very lucky, but that said, neither of our kids has any interest and that’s just fine with us as well. No one in our families before us was ever a doctor. Prestige? Not really, at least not in a big city. A lot of docs think they’ve cornered the market on intelligence and hard work but that’s just totally naive thinking. There’s a lot of really good jobs out there if you’re smart, open minded and work hard.</p>
<p>My daughter (now a PA) wanted to be a doctor since she was a pre-schooler, but for financial and other reasons went the PA route instead.</p>
<p>We never encouraged her, unless you consider the toy medical kit and pediatrician Barbie pushing. Actually, she asked for the Barbie. She spent considerable time with doctors as a young child and liked that they made people better. For her, it was an identifiable and helpful job, just like her sister always wanted to be a teacher (and is).</p>
<p>I do remember at one of my PA kid’s college tours, the head of the PA department asked the group to raise their hand if they watched one of the then popular medical dramas on television. Most raised their hands, and she said with a sigh “that’s what I was afraid of”.</p>
<p>Unless the family is capable of (or willing to) paying for med school, the child will be burdened by six figures of student loan debt before she/he earns any real money. So be prepared to live many years like a poor grad student, till almost 30 yo. It is a long and grueling road.</p>
<p>Just an FYI the friends I made over the summer that want to be doctors were all pretty well off. Come to think of it, a few of them had a parent that was a doctor. And a couple were already bragging that if they got into medical school, their dad or grandpa was going to pay for it.</p>
<p>What type of camp were you participating in where so many wanted to be doctors? The setting would have an impact on the career expectations. My daughter used to work at a church camp, and the majority of those kids would probably not be planning a medical career. The other daughter spent time at math and science summer projects, and many of those kids would be planning a medical career.</p>
<p>Your experience may well not reflect the majority of teen aged expectations, but just the expectations of those in that particular environment. If you’d been at band camp, or a missions project, or a challenge course camp, you may have had a different result.</p>
<p>“Come to think of it, a few of them had a parent that was a doctor. And a couple were already bragging that if they got into medical school, their dad or grandpa was going to pay for it.”</p>
<p>Is that a bad thing? Good for them. </p>