Q: Years ago, my grandfather was among the last of a dying breed of small town country doctors.
He was great. My father is also a physician, although he works in a larger clinic in the city. My mother at one time was the head nurse in a surgical suite and both of my older sisters are in medicine. I am in Grade 11.
Next year, I will graduate from high school. You can bet that the pressure is on me from my family to keep up with our tradition and apply to a school of medicine. The problem is that I do not want to become a doctor. In fact, I am not entirely sure what I want to do. I am leaning toward both art and drama but neither is fixed on that radar screen telecasting my future career choices.
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My parents are beside themselves. They won’t hear of anything other than medicine and they certainly will not tolerate my indecisiveness when it comes to my future. I need Mom and Dad to back off a bit and let me make my own decisions. How am I going to go about doing that?
A: Let me start to answer your note by making a couple of poignant points. The first is that you are not required to make your life-long career choice decisions when you are only just graduating from high school. The truth is that most young people who graduate from high school are not sure which direction they will choose once they leave school and begin their vocational/professional commitments. That comes later.
Often as not, young people need a few experiences from the world of real things to give themselves the information they know to start looking at life-long directions for themselves. It is called maturity. Mature career decisions are more appropriate than are high school daydreams about whatever it is “I want to be when I grow up.”
The second point I want to make is that parents have every right to want what they want for various careers for their children.
Your mom and dad want you to become a doctor. Maybe they want you to become a noted neurological surgeon. Who knows? Every home should have one.
But your parents do not have the right to take what they want for you and turn those wants into demands. Your future is yours to decide.
It is your decision, your quest for success, your challenges and your gamble on the odds that whatever you decide will work in your favour. It is best that you do not sacrifice that right by giving in and trying to please your parents.
Remember this. Self-esteem is not drawn from whatever you decide for your professional growth somewhere in the future. You do not like yourself more by becoming a physician than you would by choosing to study in the college of art.
What is important is that whatever you choose, you do the best that you can at it once you have made that commitment.
If you are going to become a doctor, then become a good one. If you are going to become an artist, then work hard at it to always do better. If you decide to work with fresh vegetables in the grocery store, then keep your counters organized.
Doing what you do well percolates self-esteem much more than pleasing Mom and Dad could ever hope. And that is what you are going to see when you take stock of yourself in the mirror every morning when you are brushing your teeth.
