Work It, Dad!
with Avi Spivack
Hi, I'm Avi, and I try to put the work and the dad together, with mild success. This is all about trying to give you a view from what it looks like on the dad-man's side of the world, and I hope you find my ruminations humorous because I try not to take myself too seriously.
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Interesting post over at the “Well” blog on the NY Times cites a study that says us fathers are impacting our daughters’ career choices, and I’m wondering if that’s a good thing.
Of course we as parents influence our children, but this post made to stop to think: will my job/career, which essentially entails working endlessly in front of a computer (not unlike many others) push my daughter into a career in tech? (Not to mention that my wife does similar work - so have we already decided what she will do when she grows up? *the question that I asked last week*).
So it’s not that I’m unhappy with what I do, rather, it’s yet another thing that I have now become more fully aware of in terms of its impact on my daughter’s development. (Beyond the is-she-going-to-learn-how-to-read before I did and all of those other psychotic developmental questions that can drive parents insane.)
And when I look at the issue a little deeper, I see my career as something that may not be entirely “tangible.” All of my work ends up on the internet. I am not in a traditional role of a doctor, lawyer, teacher, writer, where there are specific criteria and, for some, a creative element; instead, if someone were to ask my daughter what I did for work she would likely answer: “He works on the computer.” Is that really what I want her to end up doing?
The ironic element in this discussion is the fact that I could not have ended up doing something more different than both of my parents (contractor turned social worker and early childhood educator), and while I realize that I am not a daughter, perhaps my influence will be that my daughter sees how she may not want to spend her life in front of a computer and become/do something completely non-technical.
If you asked her yesterday, she would have said she wanted to be a dentist.
I can’t wait for her to fit me for dentures.
What do you think about influencing our childrens’/daughters’ career choices?
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Good topic. my husband is a pharmacist and I was a claims adjuster for five years. when my son asked what daddy does, it was easy to explain. “Daddy makes medicine to help people feel better.” When asked what mommy does, um, it was a bit harder. how do you explain claims adjusting to a four year old. so we said, “mommy, gives money to the people who get hurt.” Still sounds odd. Now, “mommy is the boss, an entrepreneur.”
So my husband often tells our son, “when you grow up you will be a doctor.”
I tell my son, “when you grow up you are going to start your company and run multi-million dollar businesses.”
I guess parents want their children to carry on their dreams. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
vera babayeva | March 2nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm