Currently a med student. In my pre-med classes, I knew a number of classmates who were pushed into medicine by their parents, including a few who were suicidally depressed because of it. For example, I was close friends with one who just took advanced biology classes and destroyed his GPA only to please his parents. Now he works as a lab tech with very poor career prospects because he can’t get into a decent grad program because of his college performance. I am actually aware of many such cases.
Even in med school, I know several kids who are only here to please their parents and they are all miserable. The really sad this is that these are all smart students who would actually be extremely successful in another field.
However, I just want to know: What goes on in the minds of the parents who push their kids so hard?
It is clear even to a casual observer that these kids are miserable and depressed. It’s so obvious that they have no interest and that they are basically destroying their career. I never really thought about it much but as I become older, and as I think of starting a family, I can honestly never imagine myself doing that.
More disturbingly, these parents are not uneducated people. In fact, virtually all these parents are well-educated, well-adjusted professionals themselves, so shouldn’t they know better? I can’t imagine seeing your own child so miserable and then just pushing them to do something that they hate.
While there are certainly (intentionally) abusive parents out there, I think in many of these cases, the parents don’t realize how they are damaging their kids psychologically and are, ultimately, driven by good intentions, albeit misguided one. Most parents do want the best for their kids. For many, that includes financial security and many define the odds of financial security by a few well-known, prestigious professions, such as doctors. I don’t think many of these parents realize the harm they are causing. I think many are motivated by ensuring a stable future for their kids. Parents make mistakes. Some are more serious than others.
Oh yes that makes sense. I have noticed this in certain communities however, it is expected that children obey the parents so I am thinking cultural as well.
Yes, that is probably part of it, in some cases. In fact, I remember a New York Times bestseller on the topic…But regardless, I think it most often comes from good intentions and wanting the best for your child. When you focus so much on the future, sometimes you lose some site of the present. Or you believe very deeply that a good future requires sacrifice in the present. But it can put a lot of pressure on kids who often just want to be kids, and who want to combine happiness with success.
Yes that’s true. What strikes me however is seeing kids with like 2.5 GPAs just taking more and more classes because their parents tell them to. I knew a few guys like that since I went to a state school and all they care about is that you pay. It is literally digging your own grave, they were obviously depressed, all they did was slept and studied.
Yeah, that’s a terrible situation because it sounds like the kids had no source of real support. Ideally, a counselor could intervene. Or even a caring teacher. And once it reaches the point of chronic depression, ideally, access to a therapist. But that is also almost impossible in some cultures - or at least considered weak and shameful - and that can prevent many from seeking the care that could literally change their lives.
What pudiepie and worriedmomuchb are correct. And these parents unfortunately don’t see that there are equally “good” professions outside of being doctors. Some also placed their own prestige over their kids’ well-being and happiness.
As a parent, there are fields that I don’t know exists when I was at school. There are new fields/majors that didn’t exist when I was at school. There were misconceptions that I had (and I was wrong big time). As a parent, I always tell my son, “as long as it’s a good major where you can feed yourself (and your family in the future) and you’re happy with what you do, then it’s a good major”
I think that this very specific pushing, the push into medical school, isn’t very common among families where the parents are US-born. Most definitely, in certain immigrant groups, becoming a doctor is considered to be the pinnacle of achievement. I can tell you from my own experience as a med student, certain students came from ethnic/religious groups who had survived genocide, and were aware that doctors had had a higher rate of survival, because their ability was so highly valued that they weren’t put to death. In some cases, the students themselves had survived, in others, they knew the history. But I never encountered a person who said that their survivor parents had forced them into medicine.
The question can be generalized. What makes parents push their children to achieve in any area - athletics, music, academics? I think it’s pretty obvious. Partly because we want the best for our children, and partly because our children’s achievement is a direct reflection upon our ability as parents.
Perhaps the range of “successful outcomes” by this standard may be narrower for kids of successful parents, since many parents want their kids to be more successful than they are.
Lower middle class parents may see success as college graduation and a college graduate job with upwardly mobile career paths – and outcome that is attainable for many (if they can get to and afford college to begin with).
But a kid with successful parents in highly paid professions has a much smaller range of outcomes that the parents may see as “successful”, hence more pressure despite an advantageous starting line.
Yes, it’s interesting to see the generational and cultural difference in what is considered to be high achievement.
S23 is applying for engineering programs, considered among his classmates to be a high status path. His immigrant grandpa keeps suggesting that S23 reconsider his plan, “I came to this country so that my grandkids could do something better than engineering” (which he sees as a lowly technician-type degree).
Many parents overestimate the capabilities of their kids. Most parents only see their kids, and they do not have a bench mark to see what it takes to become a doctor.
Preparation for the medical field in the US is unnecessarily complicated. Why do we need a 4 year under graduation to apply for a medical school? Why don’t they offer direct entry to medical school (or combined 6 year BS/MD) as an option for everyone?
Engineering is the pinnacle of achievement for a lot of South Asian families. Not so much for Former Soviet Union and East Asian families.
There is a reason why we have 4 yr college in the US, then apply for med school (or law school, or grad school). One reason is that we value a broad general liberal arts education in high school and college. A 6 year BS/MD program just doesn’t have time for a broad liberal arts education. With two years less of college, something’s got to give, and it’s not the pre-med requirements. Also we don’t track people at the age of 11 or 12, or even younger, into non-academic vs academic education. In Europe, which was/even now is very class-oriented, it was possible for an obviously intelligent, very high achieving boy of low social background to be tracked into an academic area and receive an academic high school education that might qualify him for college/university, but he had to have shown such ability and achievement by age 11 or 12. If not, he was tracked into a non-academic education, and there really wasn’t any going back. In the US, a person who was a high school dropout can decide to go back for a GED at age 30, then two years at community college, then transfer to a potentially very good 4 yr college, and then apply for and get accepted to med school at age 35. In the US, one always has the chance at continuing one’s education. That’s the difference in the societies.
Perhaps a more likely reason for medical, law, and some other professional schools is that it raises the barrier to entry to the profession, reducing competition by new entrants in order to protect incumbent practitioners.
For PhD programs, the bachelor’s degree prerequisite is so that the student gets enough of the basics of the subject done before going on to study and do research at the cutting edge of the subject.
I have cousins who are physicians overseas, in countries where the tracking is indeed at age 11, and you apply to med school at age 18.
It’s easy to see the fast tracking of a medical education is preferred to our own. Except-
they HATE practicing medicine. They picked it as teenagers. It is a prestigious field in their country but NOT especially lucrative compared to other professions (mostly state run medical facilities- so they are civil service). None of them are encouraging their kids to consider medicine, and ALL of them regret having entered a field they knew little about.
One tells me “I was good at chemistry, so of course everyone told me medicine was for me. But I hate being a doctor and I’ve come to resent my patients for being ill and needy.”
So if for nothing else- our cumbersome and painful training (Bachelors, then med school, then years of apprenticeship) gives young kids many opportunities to off-ramp if the shadowing and volunteering required to put forth a credible med school application shows them that they don’t like treating patients. Lots of interesting careers for someone who likes chemistry, many of which do not involve body fluids.
No shadowing required in most countries. High scores get you in. Being a good student keeps you in. Once you qualify and don the white coat- it’s up to you to figure out if you actually like being a doctor or not.
If you can afford to pay a lot of money for it. That’s also the difference in the societies.
How much sense does it make for a poor 35 year old to go to med school in the US? They’re unlikely to ever have enough years of employment to pay back their med school loans. In many countries med school is free.
I’m a physician, child of an immigrant physician. However, my dad never encouraged me to pursue medicine - in fact somewhat persuaded me against it - and I studied engineering (my personal passion, not some family prestige factor). Worked for a few years and ended up discovering I really wanted to go into medicine.
I remained as neutral as possible with my kids. Now my first child (a junior) is an excellent student in calc, AP physics etc but has no interest in a science or medicine career. Sometimes I feel like I was too neutral and didn’t expose him to more opportunities since his school is not strong in STEM; maybe he would’ve found a passion for STEM at a “better” HS. Daughter seems more STEM oriented.
(Having grown up there).