<p>Thank you for saying this. I know a woman who majored in Art History who now works for one of the major auction houses in Manhattan. I have two friends, both music majors, who own small recording studios and do commercial work. My cousin the French major is a senior VP at a major international financial firm (and she doesn’t speak one word of French at her job, either.) All of them love what they do, which should be the entire point of education. </p>
<p>In the three months since she’s started college, my D1 has changed her intended major and her future plans at least five times. Her newest plan is to become a pediatrician. Now, this is a kid who nearly passed out when she nicked herself shaving her legs. Do I think she’s cut out to be a doctor? Not really. Am I going to stop her? No. Will it matter to me if she changes her mind yet again and decides to become a potter, an accountant, or a teacher? No. It’s her life, so her major must be her choice. Dh and I feel that our parents gave us the greatest gift in allowing us to pursue our dreams and our goals. We have no intention of giving anything less to our daughters.</p>
<p>This could have happened at almost ANY college. If a student is going to be a partier…that student will find party animals at ANY college…ANY! Re: missing family etc…that could also have happened at any residential college.</p>
<p>I guess THESE parents should have put their foot down and insisted their kids live at home and go to the CC because that is what happened anyway.</p>
<p>You know…we know several kids who graduated with one or the other of our two kids who honestly everyone thought would flunk out of college. Lots of folks wondered why their parents were spending bucho bucks to send them to expensive private schools. Well…you know what…these kids ended up rallying in college and are highly successful. The ones who graduated with DS (in 2007 from college) have great jobs and are happy. There are a couple of DD’s friends who are on track to graduate on the four year plan.</p>
<p>We need a separate thread (or preferably, separate subforum) called POIH ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, I think POIH raises a few important questions that are relevant to this thread:</p>
<p>1) Are some lessons only learned by making your own mistakes? Can you learn from other peoples’ mistakes? </p>
<p>2) Can/should parents help their kids by drawing attention to lessons that could be learned from some other peoples’ mistakes (or perhaps the parents’ own mistakes)?</p>
<p>3) When do we completely stop voicing our opinions to our children about their life decisions? - when they are in high school? - when they go to college? -when they are financially independent? -or should we never stop?</p>
<p>4) Is there one correct answer for each of the questions above? Or are the answers unique to each student, each parent, and each situation?</p>
<p>5) POIH and many others on this forum have come to the US from other cultures and bring their own perspectives to the discussion. Do we disregard their perspectives as being simply alien and irrelevant to the dominant American culture, or do we pause and think whether we need to reexamine some basic assumptions and choose what makes the most sense?</p>
<p>Life is a combination of the above. Sometimes folks see what others have done and learn from those things (either mistakes or positive things). But folks also learn by making mistakes (as well as doing things well) themselves.</p>
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<p>I DO think parents should draw their kids’ attention to the errors of others. BUT at the same time, remember that what the parent extrapolates from these “mistakes” and what the kiddo does might be different.</p>
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<p>Well…I still express my opinions to my kids. The thing is…I also understand that at ages 21 and 25, they might not always agree with me. And that is just fine. Just for the record…they voice their opinions with us (both parents) too. I think if they viewed this household as a one way “opinion” place (only the parent opinion counts) they wouldn’t bother. While our opinions don’t necessarily agree, the do spawn some very interesting discussions.</p>
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<p>Different strokes for different folks. I just think parents and kids need to be sensitive to one anothers’ “barometers”.</p>
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<p>Certainly we all should be sensitive to cultural and ethnic beliefs from different cultures, religions or parts of the country even.</p>
<p>I know you were. I’m just pointing out that I found it amusing for one to have total or near-complete self-determination while financially dependent on someone else (while being an adult). That is all.</p>
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<p>Yes, and that position would theoretically be totally tenable – I’m surprised that more posters haven’t said that no parent should ever dictate the child’s major. But this was actually my first and only question, and it finally got answered. Thank you.</p>
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<p>The question is whether you think that decision should ever be made, not necessarily with that family but with any family. I’m not asking whether paying for college should be a law, I’m asking whether it is ever justifiable for a parent to restrict a child’s major. In other words, do you find this a personal decision where both answers can be correct, or as an ethical one with one correct answer?</p>
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<p>How on earth is it pathetic? It is not their job to support me in whatever way I want. It is their job to support me in a way that they find productive. We can debate the merits of an Art History major, but the point remains that they just don’t find it a worthwhile expense, given that I enjoy other, more practical subjects as well (I actually don’t enjoy Art History, but for the sake of the discussion…).</p>
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<p>Where does the line get drawn? Say a parent is pro-gay marriage. The child becomes very anti-gay marriage. Then the issue of discrimination does come up. Same with the abortion debate, as the pro-life people view abortion as murder. This sharp division is probably less relevant when talking about tax rates and the like. Again, here it is shades of grey, as you say, and I wouldn’t really think it pathetic for a parent to make restrictions (whatever they may be) in this case.</p>
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<p>That’s true. But this entire discussion revolves around cutting off the sweater flow, so this example is bizarre and not too relevant.</p>
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<p>Right, but your “disrespecting” definition applies to you. For another parent flunking out may not be an issue at all. For yet another major may be a significant sign of respect.</p>
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<p>That’s actually the only point that I want to make here.</p>
<p>As a rule, I think cultural perspectives should be taken into consideration in discussions like this. However, what if those perspectives lead to assumptions about college and/or the workforce that are incorrect? Two situations come to mind:</p>
<p>a) The poster from last year who didn’t want her D to go to MIT because (1) she thought it was a “tech school”; (2) the relatives back home had never heard of it; (c) she wanted her D to become a “snob” and hobnob with the supposedly finer folk at HYP.</p>
<p>b) Parents who push their kids into professions without checking out the true state of the job market. Specifically, I’m thinking of law school. Right now, the job market for new law school grads is the worst in 30 years. Biglaw firms are reducing their on-campus interviews this year, even at HYS and the other T14 schools. These firms are also deferring their recent hiring classes for six months to a year, meaning that people who were scheduled to start work this past September won’t be starting until 9/2010. The remainder of the new grads will be competing against associates with 5+ years of experience who were laid off in the recent recession. If they’re lucky, they might get a job paying $35K a year with minimal benefits which won’t make a dent in the $120K of debt they accrued to pay for law school. I read a board where a lot of people in this situation post, and invariably someone will say that he went to law school because his parents made him do so and it would have been a great shame to his family if he declined, etc. Having a professional degree is no guarantee of instant wealth or even moderate security, especially in this economy.</p>
<p>thumper1: Based on your answers, I don’t see all that much difference between your approach to parenting than POIH’s approach. He has repeatedly asserted that all he does is express his opinions (perhaps very emphatically) to his kid, and then he lets her be the final decider.</p>
<p>Now he does have a far more judgemental attitude towards other people’s parenting choices, but that is a separate issue.</p>
<p>He’s also stated flat out that he took Yale and UPenn off his D’s college list because he and his wife didn’t like the areas surrounding these schools. He’s now saying differently.</p>
<p>I am a latecomer to this discussion and haven’t read the other posts – but I’d note that my college graduate son currently has a career relying on interpersonal skills that I could not have seen my 17-year-old son having “in a million years”. My son was a reclusive, introverted, bookish kind of kid in high school – and he grew up to become a leader/organizer type. From the age of 20 on up he has had full time jobs being paid for his abilities in effective outreach and recruitment. </p>
<p>Don’t sell your kids short. I was also a quiet, shy kid – a grew up to become a trial lawyer – no room for “shy” in that field. </p>
<p>I think it is misguided and unrealistic to assume that the child or teenager in your home will always remain the same. New interests, passions, and abilities are constantly developed in educational settings and the workplace.</p>
<p>He has proven himself quite capable of defending himself, so I don’t need to defend him, but to be fair, a lot of parents who consider themselves non-controlling will exercise that sort of veto power over their kids’ lists. </p>
<p>You and I may disagree with the negative impression the parents have of Yale and Penn, but I know I would strongly discourage my D from attending school on a campus that I thought unsafe (e.g, Kabul University).</p>
<p>jym626: POIH’s D’s list was not lacking in top tier schools and despite having Yale and Penn vetoed, she had a pretty wide selection of schools to choose from when all her acceptances were in. </p>
<p>The ranking of Kabul U is not the point. My point is, even if HYPSM all decided to relocate to Kabul next year, I’d be very, very reluctant to let my D apply to them.</p>
<p>Look, POIH has rubbed a lot of us the wrong way by making some very insensitive, dismissive, opinionated, and judgemental statements, and by having a very different set of values in some respects. But he does make some very good points on many threads and I enjoy reading his posts.</p>
<p>^^^ All is forgiven, VP BTW, I DID put a winky face in that post to try to indicate that I was being silly. That said, the world university ranking number and links are real!</p>
[Kabul</a> University - Review & Web Ranking](<a href=“
BTW, I DID put a winky face in that post to try to indicate that I was being silly. That said, the world university ranking number and links are real!</p>