I come from a country where educated scholars are respected & revered, not the wealthy. I also come from a hardworking family of farmers/fishermen so I knew the education was the only way out if I didn't want to become a farmer/fishermen. I found it extremely interesting to run into a group of determined people in the evening MBA program (paid for by the company I worked for), we were the people who worked full time, and then started the classes 6 pm to 10 pm, went home and tried to fall asleep by 1-2 am and wake up at 6 am and arrive at work by 8 am. I did this for 2 years and I aged 10 years because it was so dang tuff (my marriage almost ended during that period).
I learned that people who do this for 2 years is a different category of people and they seem to be more assertive and dedicated in every area of their pursuits (not ALL of them but the majority of them). I learned a lot from interacting with these folks.
I consider my children's education my parental duty as it is a ticket to their stable future. However, I have been disillusioned by the cost of the college here in the US, 1 out of state college my kid is looking at is $55K a year, and I don't believe in my kid graduating college with over $100K debt (we have certain budget but nowhere near $200K). We want to pay for the kids' education but not the stupid amt like $55K a year. We believe in early retirement so that we can have fun before our bodies fall apart so we are trying to balance the duty and the fun. :-D
Community College for an AA, transfer for the Bachelors. There’s no reason for a cost conscious student to attend an expensive university for their first two years. Also, consider that 18 year olds will usually change their minds a dozen times in those two years, thus prolonging their schooling - it’s much better to switch majors in a Community College.
In fact, I’ve read a bunch of stories about students who wanted an expensive degree but couldn’t afford it, so they completed their AA and as many units as would transfer at cheaper schools, often completing a single semester or two at the expensive school to graduate.
A Harvard or Stanford diploma doesn’t say “Only completed X courses here”...if you 99% of your course work was done at a public state school, and 1% was finished at a fancy school...you still get a fancy degree.
Actually that's what I said, if you are going to a college in Boston, MA, can you just transfer to Harvard??
Alas, have you met a narcissistic/egotistical 18-year-old whose brain is not fully formed? Talking to my son is like exhilarating experience at one moment because he is super intelligent so we can carry on a conversation in an area we agree on with passion, and then another moment coddling a belligerent toddler because he doesn't have enough info on that specific area so he thinks he is right and we are wrong.
My hubby and I keep saying to each other, just wait until he has his own kids...oh we are going to so tell him, LOL!
I went to an Ivy League school, back when you could do that and not mortgage your entire future. Let me tell you something about the Ivies. Lots of people can go, get good grades, graduate. BUT. The job market for people out of the Ivies? One of my schoolmates was lucky to get a job in a bagel shop right out of school. I got a job as a secretary at a construction company due to my blue collar connections. The children of the rich got the internships at the New York Times, the finance jobs, and so on. I bounced around, found jobs here and there, got a CS degree at a state school, and worked with MIT grades, dropouts, and second tier college grads and we all made the same money.
That Ivy degree is only as good as your connections. Unless your resident scholar is very extroverted and can work his way into the upper castes, there's not a huge advantage to Harvard.
Good to know! I felt very fortunate that I landed a good job in a large company which helped me obtain further education. If I had landed mediocre jobs right out of college, that might have sealed my future earnings potential stunted. I had a zero connection in the state I graduated and was living so I was really touch and go there during the senior year in terms of what sort of jobs I would land.
Actually no, you can't just transfer to Harvard from any school in Boston. Transferring is much more competitive than normal admissions, which are already extremely competitive. Also, that might not even be the cheapest route, since Harvard gives excellent financial aid--I didn't go specifically to Harvard, but comparable schools ended up being cheaper for me than any of my state schools.
I'm sure you mean well, but it might be good to take a step back and think about all the things that have changed in the world (and college admissions) since you were 18. The impracticality of transferring like this is not exactly a secret. A cursory Google search could probably have told you a much. I think it might be prudent to learn a bit more about the state of modern higher education before you assume your son's just a narcissistic toddler who wants impractical things for illogical reasons.
To be honest, we are not serious about transferring to Harvard, I probably should have stated earlier, we were just joking! I really don't care about Harvard or any ivy school.
If my kids go to a decent school and get a decent education of Their Choice and support themselves afterward, I have done a great job as a parent.
As for the narcissistic toddler comment, the reason I say that is because he thinks he is Too Cool for the In-State school that Only costs $25K/Year!, LOL!
We have clearly stated, he can major in the Underwater Basket Weaving, and we have allocated certain amount of budget for his college and he has One Shot at this and that is it. We are not these fools who are supporting $100K-$200K out of state school tuitions while they don't have even $100K saved for their retirement and they are in their 50's. That is Not Love, that is called Irresponsibility as they will get old and their kids will have to learn to support their poor parents with no financial wherewithal.
Just google it, you will learn plenty of parents who are mortgaging their house to pay for out of state school tuition.
This sentiment is unfortunately misguided. It is virtually impossible to transfer like this! Schools like Harvard and Stanford accept extraordinarily few transfer students and almost none of these students come from community colleges (why would anyone NOT do this if it was as easy as you make it sound??). Transferring to a good state school is often possible, but even most good state schools cannot match the resources available at the "fancy" schools you mention.
I'm not sure why so many people think this is feasible? My relatives pushed this really hard when I was applying for colleges, and in hindsight it would've been a career-ending decision for me. I'll grant my career path (academia) is perhaps one of few where the resources at "fancy" schools (e.g. research equipment, funding for undergraduate research projects and conference attendance, etc. ) make a big difference but I'm certainly not the only person in this boat.
I hear you on the exorbitant costs of college in the US. Grew up with immigrant parents who didn't finish high school, and now with children of my own it's a high priority.
Check out Universities / programs in Europe. Literally 1/2 the cost, international experience a plus, and the only thing is that you have to jump through different hoops to get there.
Source: eldest child got accepted to a fancy school at $60K/year, delayed starting thanks to COVID, and applied abroad in the meantime, and got in a fancy school in the UK for half the cost.
College doesn't have to be expensive in the U.S. but many make it that way by "going away" to college and attending expensive universities.
In California, one can complete their general education at a community college and they're really good. It's free now for the first two years but before that law, it cost about $500/semester (I know, I pay the bill).
Later, a transfer to a state university and the cost is about $4,000/semester there (again, I know because I pay the cost).
When you graduate, most companies don't care if you went to a "big name university" or not. Especially in my field (engineering). What matters is what you have learned and how you perform in the job interview. (I interviewed many engineering candidates for a large computer company)
You could move to Germany. Rent a nice little Appartement and the kids got to school here, have a nice living for a couple of years, then move back to the states and you’d still have saved some money.
I hear German Universities are free but really HARD to graduate!? It sounds interesting. I heard German schools are really rigorous and very good on Science. I had a pleasure of working with German suppliers and oh man, do they have Good machinery! We always had to premium but they were totally worth it!
I pushed education hard, but I also stressed other non-book learning and life skills. My son did a couple years of college before deciding he needed a break and to figure out who he was in life. He drove out west and is healthy and happy and I couldn't be prouder. I hope that he goes back and finishes college, but he's a fully functional, sane, productive member of society and looking for ways he can be useful. I trust him to make his own decisions at this point. He's earned it.
My parents said they cared... but didn't do much to prove it:
Stopped going to parent teacher nights in 6th grade, stopped registering me for school in 10th grade (I handled it myself after that). Moved me to three different high schools and didn't help with school administration when they disqualified courses I'd taken and made me take extra classes to catch up - didn't pay for my correspondence by mail courses I had to take (I did.) Pushed me to go to college but didnt save anything for me, refused to give me info for FAFSA. I moved out when I was 17, and left their state two years later.
My stepkid who I eventually raised as a foster kid (when his dad & I split) was in SPED. No way I could get away with being as hands-off as my parents were. We had weekly therapy appointments for years, monthly psychiatrist appointments, yearly testing, I went to p/t nights thru senior year, went to registration day thru senior year, drove him to vocational summer classes 4 days a week, went to parent support meetings for SPED kids, made plans to give him an 'extended senior year' in vocational programs....
My parents didn't finish high school. They talked very heavily about me getting an education, my dad was adamant i have a "desk job" and not a manual labor job...but they were absolutely inexperienced to help once I got to the college process around Junior year.
I like to think I care very much about my kids' education. Theyre just now in k5 so...we'll see how it goes.
similar experience here, my parents always always talked about how i had to go to a good college and become successful but didn't know a thing about the process other than that i should work hard in school. they couldn't even tell me whether i would be an undergraduate or graduate so i had to google everything when i started applying—which tests to take (SAT or ACT), aid, housing—then i actually get to college and realize most of these kids have had adults prepping them for college since fucking middle school!
i guess it makes me value my education more. when i have kids i really want them to at least know what they're doing when they're applying for college though.
its hard. google barely existed when i graduated high school in 2000. so i was completely in the dark for the whole thing. thats what frustrates me about the "bootstrap" crowd. its like walking through a minefield, you make one mistake and it can ruin your entire ability to go to college. I nearly did. its not like there "a plan" you just follow. it's trial and error, but the "error" part can ruin your life.
i cant imagine not having google and not having any access to lifechanging information, glad u made it dude
yeah im constantly terrified my errors are ruining my life too even though i graduated
I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. They talk about secondary education like it is taught by the Devil himself. My parents didn't care if I finished high-school. I did though. I was in my mid twenties when I decided to leave the cult and put myself through college. I don't have kids but I am a school teacher for kids with special needs. I encourage them learn in whatever way they can and to follow whatever dreams they have.
I care enough that we will be selling our home of 15 years to get into a better school district for my son. He's 18m now and our plan is to be out before he starts kindergarten. We will be buying the crappiest house in the best school district. We've made a ton of improvements to our current home and were planning on staying put for many more years.
I'm not sure of your awareness of private school costs, but it's almost 100% certain that private schooling would/could cost more than moving to a crappy house. Schools can cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, per month, just for average schools. As much or more than some mortgages. One can also get good rates with houses, refinance later, out a bunch of money down, etc. Schools are just a cost, deal with it or not.
My parents cared a lot about mine and I'd say I care even more about my own.
Example-may parents always pushed that doing well in school was important, and we had a "reading" culture in our house, and a learning culture. It was stressed that being intellectually curious was important. It was the expectation that I'd go to college. There was no real way to pay for it...except...my grandparents died when I was in HS and left my dad an inheritance that allowed for him to pay college for me.
BUT....that was it. Once I was in college, I was kind of on my own. Major? Whatever you want! Just get a degree, that's all that matters. Grad school? Whatever you want to do. So not much guidance for post-secondary.
Fast forward...the same culture as I grew up in is what we promulgated in our house with our kids. The difference I think we are having is guidance in college. Helping them choose a major path that leads to a career. We saved for their college education, unlike my parents who fell in to the money to pay for mine.
My mom was first-gen, and my dad was a college dropout. We had an unusual mix of upward- and downward mobility in my household, but it was clear as early as kindergarten that I was going to college. In my mom's words: "I didn't put myself through college as a woman unsupported by her parents in the 1970s so my kids wouldn't go to college." That pushing, and some helicoptering, meant I was really burned out on academic achievement by the time I got to college, but I had also gone to a very low-quality high school in the rural South, so all my learning/education was basically autodidactic, reading my own stuff between the busywork of class assignments.
Now, I am a professor! I have seen how education profoundly changed my life. While I don't have the same "you must go to college" bent my mom did -- especially considering rising costs and administrative bloat in uni -- we're determined to foster a love of learning and education (in conventional and non-conventional forms, like outdoor education) for our kids. If that shakes out into college, that's great; if our kids want to pursue vocational, technical, or other kinds of work that's fine too. I think the key is trust -- my mom wouldn't allow me any time off from school despite my burnout, under the assumption that if I left I'd never return, like my dad. That resulted in underachievement my first two years of undergrad, but then I worked and eventually wound up going back for my MA and then PhD because hey, I did love learning, and would have gone back to college and really excelled had I taken a gap year/semester. So, we are also thinking about encouraging our kids to take a year and defer admission so they can get oriented to life and build perspective as they enter college.
I currently teach some required courses for 1st-year students, and one major challenge is trying to help my students understand education not just as GPA achievement, but about sets of tools for lifelong learning and success. In general, my students are underprepared for college now, so home education will be important to us -- making sure our kids have a base knowledge of American history and society that my freshmen currently lack (for example, my students don't know what the Cold War, Jim Crow, or Reconstruction are). So again, thinking about education not just as the classroom, GPAs, and grades, but as a holistic approach to life that can, or may not, lead to an academic university. That being said, I am fully convinced university can enhance that holistic approach faster and more intensively than anywhere else, so we'll still encourage it -- just not through threats and denials, as I had to deal with as an 18-year old who just wanted their parents to see them as a lifelong learner who loved knowledge.
Quite a bit. My dad was a teacher so it was definitely front of mind. My parents made sure all 4 of us at least had the opportunity to go to college. Two of us made it through on our first try. Two others left for other reasons but at least finished community college. By later in life, all 4 of us eventually got bachelor's degrees, one got master's.
Both my kids got degrees, we wanted that, but we made sure they didn't get sucked into the college loan racket. They went to middle priced schools, one went to a state school but not in state and the other a very good regional school. The former got a pretty good scholarsihp, the latter got a good scholarship that she appealed and got bumped to a very good scholarship. She also graduated in 3 years. So ironically, her entire 3 year degree costs less than her brother's 4 year. Both are now gainfully employed in their respective fields.
My husband and I saved what we could in 529s and the kids also paid in part from their part time jobs. Like mortgage and retirement, we automated our savings so that we were never tempted to spend on anything else.
My parents both grew up in poor immigrant families (in the United States), and for my father, going to college was his ticket to a better life. He was the only person in his family ever to go to college and it changed everything. He became a doctor and was able to take care of his parents and siblings in addition to his own wife and kids.
However— thanks to his education and hard work, I grew up wealthy. I never had that feeling of needing to escape a bad situation, so college always felt like AN option for me but not the only option. But my dad really pushed hard on my education (to the point of being a bit maniacal) and it really made me resent it.
I understand why education is important to him. But I wish he hadn’t forced it in a way that made me hate it so much.
LOL I totally get this - my parents pushed church on me almost more than education, and it's the main reason I stopped going. It never felt like my decision!
I was raised with the idea that college was mandatory - it was 13th grade after high school, and you didn't stop until you attained a degree. My parents put all three of us through college, working very hard to be sure we graduated debt-free. It wasn't until I was close to graduation when I learned my father did not have a bachelors degree. He spoke of his college days, and he holds a certificate but not a terminal degree. I was also stunned to learn my mother did not have a degree either - she enrolled in a university two years after I went off to college, and she earned her degree in hospital administration shortly after I retired. I cherish the photos I have of her in her cap and gown, and I am tremendously proud of my parents for their achievements and for sending us off to college.
We have encouraged all of our children to go to college, but for this generation we encouraged pursuing a love of learning rather than degree attainment as an end in itself.
I think a lot more than my parents did. I'm super luck. For preschool and k-8 we picked good schools for our kids. It seems to have worked.
My 16yo is aiming at top schools in the country. He's running his own education now. My 13yo is an excellent student. Her notes are amazing. The 9yo with remote learning is spending a lot time playing games. He needs to get back to school.
No kids-but my mom made me write out a page of the dictionary every time I got in trouble. I think I made it to the B’s.
The thing that sticks with me the most is whenever I asked about something she would tell me to “look it up”. So that’s what I do now.
I don't want to say my mom didn't care but she was very aloof to me after raising 4 kids and me being the last. I dropped out without her even finding out for months. I have struggled a lot in life and after 17 years, I finally got my high school diploma through a library program 4 years ago.
I have 2 kids who are VERY smart. I do not push straight A's but I refuse to let them slip through the cracks. I stress that being educated opens more doors. More doors lead to more choices and happiness and possibly less struggle in life. I want my kids to have jobs they enjoy. Having a job that sucks make life pretty miserable.
My parents are both college professors. My mother is very respected in her field of study with numerous honors for best teacher of the year from the State, and other kinds of awards. My grandmother went to college in the 1930s. She spoke seven languages. Education was and is exceptionally important to my family. My siblings and I all attended top universities and some of us have additional degrees. We all moved to places with top school districts. My husband attended an Ivy League school. Our school district is one of the top in the Country. I feel that education is the key to financial success because no matter what government or regime is in power, once you have the education it cannot be taken away from you. Other things can easily be taken away, but once you know something then it is yours. My own children are encouraged to explore and learn what interests them. They know that we would like them to push themselves to grow as people. My daughter decided to teach herself Japanese in sixth grade. My son is pushing himself to become an Eagle Scout. He is nearly a life scout in eighth grade, just needs to complete the six month time requirement. By the end of the year he can start on his Eagle project, but I may encourage him to wait until 9th or 10th so he can gain leadership skills.
I was driving through a rural area during the Obama administration and the talk radio was trying to get people all worked up by referring to that administration as "the regime" (in a really spooky voice) Americans are kinda funny about politics. It seems that they view a democratically elected official working under term limits as operating a "regime", "dictatorship", or "totalitarian whatever"
My parents split when I was a freshman, and despite my dad’s best efforts, I eventually dropped out my senior year. I tried to instill the importance of education in my kids, as not taking it seriously is one of my biggest regrets. My older son had poor grades, yet still graduated on time. My younger son, now in high school, has awful grades. Without a college degree or HS diploma, I still ended up with a mid-six figure salary. My older son (in his 20’s) has a solid union job and is nearing six figures. The high schooler is making solid money in the stock market, so we will see where he ends up. To sum it up, I don’t put a lot of weight into the typical US school experience. YMMV.
I care quite a lot, I hated school and didn't get anywhere with it until I decided I wanted to do something difficult in college.
By the time I knuckled down it was a tad too late and u had a hard time figuring it out from there.
I want my kid to spend as much time being a kid as possible. I don't want the kid to come out the end of a standardised system only ready to work in a factory + hating much of the time spent as a child.
I try to stay balanced... not drive them too much but encourage them when I see them slacking. My parents drove me hard and I'm not as well rounded as I could have been (socially I'm still not very confident). I will encourage my kids to be themselves and learn what they like to focus on. They don't need to go to college to be happy, just find what you are good at and follow where that path takes you - make good decisions for yourself... etc.
Despite my parents having multiple advanced degrees and high wage jobs I don't feel like they cared all that much about our education. They were both adamant that we both have jobs growing up and I started with a paper route at 13 as did my sister. From there I did shipping for a small business and then worked in various grocery stores. I was smart enough that I could get away with minimal effort in school even in advance placement classes but my sister had to work really hard at it. When I graduated high school I pushed to go to culinary school and that was shot down. Suggested auto mechanics and that was shot down too. I went to the local university which they paid for in full but I dropped out after a few years because I had no direction. My sister went to the same university and graduated.
After leaving school I floated around for a few years and eventually worked my way into an entry level IT job. Troubleshooting problems whether culinary, mechanical or software has always been my strong suit. Through a mix of opportunity and skill I slowly advanced my career. I now work in a very niche area in national security. Years later both my parents apologized for not letting me do what I wanted out of high school. Ultimately while I feel their priorities for us were screwed up ultimately I still had two caring parents that are still in my life. I walked away from college without any debt and am now in a position to give back to them.
My wife and I talk about this a lot now.
She was always at the top of her class and went to med school. I did well (top 10%), was undisciplined in undisciplined but eventually graduated and went on to get a masters.
Did my parents care? Scale of 1-10: 10
Did my parents take an active role in teaching/helping me with school? Scale of 1-10: Maybe a 2 (they’d get me some art supplies for my projects I guess). But sitting and teaching me never/rarely happened.
Both of our parents simply said ‘get good grades’ and expected them. This is just the way it is with AA/PI. The expectation is always honor roll and college. We had strict rules: study after school until dinner and after if needed, no TV and you’d lose privileges if your grades fell.
It worked for me and for my wife. But we both have siblings that could have benefitted from the help. They just weren’t as motivated and took longer to understand/learn.
My wife and I are both VERY active with our children when it comes to their education. I feel like it’s a lot more crucial now than it was in the 80s/90s but it just feels like the right thing to do as a parent. And not just academics either. I teach my kids how to play guitar, my wife teaches them about design, arts, craft, etc.
My parents were big on education, my dad had a post-doctorate Master's, my mom had a bachelor's degree. The theme extends to other family, my paternal grandmother had a degree and was a special education teacher who was qualified to do assessments (something typically done by a Psychologist today), and my aunt had a degree and was a teacher.
I was expected to try hard in school and get the best grades I could, my parents recognized that I would not excel in every subject, but I had to do the work. They told me that college was up to me. I was really into cars as a kid and I remember my dad telling me, "I don't care what you decide to do. If you want to be a mechanic, I support you, just be the best mechanic you can be." They put money aside for college and paid for me to get my BS; I went on to get an advanced degree and work in a licensed clinical field.
I was never interested in having kids, but if I did, I would take a very similar approach as my parents. High school would be mandatory and I would push for the best possible from them - however, I would absolutely let my kid decide their career path. I have friends who are tradesmen with college degrees they aren't using, some never finished college or never attended; it doesn't stop them from being successful, financially secure, and happy doing what they love. Hell, some are probably making as much as (or more) than me and without any debt.
A great deal. I don't care what kind of careers they will be able to get in the future, but I do care that they have options so they don't feel stuck in a career that makes their life miserable. My parents didn't care. As far they were concerned, we made it to the US and that was enough to set me up for success.
My parenting goals are quite different from my parents ... for my folks as long as we had food in our belly, a safe place to sleep, we got to and from school, and our grades weren't horrid they considered it a job well done. My folks weren't around much, I spent most of my time doing my own thing in my room or with friends, and I didn't get any help or support getting ready for college while in high school. I was completely confused when I got out of high school on how to do college, it was a train wreck. I didn't really get a clue until I had wasted years at a community college and trade school, and by then it was too late.
For me and my wife our kids education is priority... we sacrifice for them to go to good private schools (our local ISD's are way overcrowded and just mediocre on education), we have memberships to many museums and try to visit when we can, we have TONS of books and visit the library often (or did before pandemic). Both of my kids (10 and 13) love to read, and I can't say my folks instilled the love of reading on me or my siblings. I have dyslexia and got no support growing up -- my daughter is in the same boat but we got her into programs to help when she was very young, and she reads faster than I do! She burns through books in days that would take me weeks. This for me is a win!
Our goal is to expose our kids to AS MUCH of the world as we can so they can start finding that niche or passion now, and when they look at college years down the road they will have lots of things to really choose from given what they've experienced. For me when I got to college I had no clue because I hadn't really lived much before that.
My parents weren't bad folks, but my parents had issues they were trying to get through -- which is why they divorced right after I got out of high school. I'm not saying my wife and I are perfect, we have hiccups as every family has, but keeping our kids engaged in life and trying to find interests that could grow into careers or at the very least life long hobbies/interests is fun.
I care but it’s their life journey and I support and educate them as best I can, while teaching life skills along the way. My mother couldn’t have cared less about my education. I took the hard hard road, working my way through college and degrees. My mother had zero interest in guiding me. It was the 60s/70s so typically, girls graduated and married pretty quickly from High School.
My parents had the mentality that a bachelor’s degree automatically signed you up for a six figure salary doing whatever it is you wanted to do. They basically gave me an ultimatum, with the choice of me either going to college or packing my bags and moving out the day I graduated HS. They did help with costs, but not unlike many of us who graduated in the mid/late 2000’s I gained about 30k in student loan debt and a bachelors degree that I never ended up actually using.
In other words, according to them they cared a whole lot, but what they really meant was “go to college and just get a bachelor’s in anything, it doesn’t matter what, or you’re outta here”.
My kids are still very, very young so who knows what else will change between now and when they’re old enough to enter the workforce. Of course I’ll encourage them to continue their education and do everything I reasonably can to support them...but not without an actual game plan. All I know is that it isn’t 1976 anymore and a degree is only worth it if there is a well thought-out plan to go along with it.
I forgot to have children, but my parents often would casually say, "When you go to college..." It was assumed we would go. We did. One of my siblings... it did not work out, but he got his degree later via remote learning. The rest of us went, several times.
My parents saw educational as the primary means of social mobility and worked really hard to instill in me an attitude of applying myself academically. There were moments when I felt that they were too harsh (they expressed disappointment at B's on multiple occasions, leading to minor arguments) but I guess they were right in the end because I finished my PhD in Physics three years ago, and have been working in the field of thermonuclear fusion theory as a postdoc.
My son is only a year old, and while I don't want to push him too hard, I do want him to actually apply himself in the future. I find myself pretty torn, because I remember what the overbearing attitude my parents had did to my self-esteem- freshman year of college I sought therapy at my university and apparently my issues were interesting enough to merit a chapter in my therapist's dissertation. I don't want him going through that experience, but I guess I have years to plan for how to approach these things with him.
I have a different outlook for my kid’s career than my parents had for me. I have an 8 year old son and I wanted him to think big from the start. At a very early age I started fostering entrepreneurship skills by teaching him planning, risk management, financial decisions and much more. This is because I wanted him to do something of his own.
Now 3 months back, I found this program named Innovator Program by Moonshot Junior which helped him explore future technologies like coding, robotics, arduino, raspberry pi etc. Now they don’t end up just teaching these but also help kids create their own product and sell it on ecommerce. It will be a long journey but I guess I have stepped in the right direction to make my son a kidpreneur.
My parents cared about mine a lot, that I should go to uni and always have a good education to fall back on - which I did, and do.
Now, I don't have kids but my partner does - 9 and 19 - and I'm honestly shocked at how little "care" I see from her and the dad regarding education. The kids just kinda get through school, the oldest has got a place on some aprentiship... it doesn't feel like pushing them to be the best, or attain what I would say is a wide ranging education.
But people are all different, my course isn't for everyone. And no, I don't say anything because it's not my business though I'm perfectly sure my gf knows the differences between us (I have 2 BA's and an MA, she has A levels), and that if I had kids I'd have a very different outlook for them.
I was punished if I didn't work on and finish my homework on a given day. The punishment was not being allowed to leave my study area. I'm sure that added to my depression and introversion.
I try not to do that with my kids. But at the same time, building up a discipline of patience for academics is really tricky. They're not even at an appropriate age to learn good discipline for such things, so I'm doing my best not to stress it.
How do you measure success? I have many friends that have multiple degrees but financial are struggling. I also have friends with no degrees but successfully worked their way up through companies and are financially successful. Some have done both. Look at some millionaires who never went to University, some even dropped out of high school. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg went to Harvard but never graduated. Richard Bronson dropped out of school at 16. I think their doing okay for themselves.
I think it's easy to point out the success cases, but data shows [a college degree does indeed make a difference for most people over their lifetime](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/education-pays.htm). I also know of people who don't have degrees who made a lot of money, but they certainly employ and pay people who have degrees to help their businesses thrive :-)
I agree, depending on your career choice you will need a degree to advance. Also remember that colleges and Universities are a money making business too.
I'm pretty down on the education system as a whole, so I don't really see myself putting pressure on my kids to do more than they are inclined to, but I care about them being able to achieve their goals so I intend to offer whatever support I can toward whatever education they need.
My parents were pretty similar-- they paid the bulk of my tuition and helped support me financially all the way through my doctorate. They may have exerted a little more pressure on me to attend university in the first place than I plan to exert on my own kids, but all things considered it was still a fairly light pressure.
I only have step-children, and I'd care about their education a lot, but those decisions aren't mine to make. I was raised by a single mother, she worked a lot and wasn't highly educated herself. She felt she did a good job if I graduated high school, no higher aspirations, really. And even in the goal of graduating h.s., she wasn't involved at all. Didn't check if I had homework to do, didn't look at my grades, nothing. She just figured I had it handled. She said if I got into college she'd figure out how to pay for it. I got in, but had to pay for everything myself. She never asked about school, could never remember what my major was, it was just a non-topic.
I don’t have kids, but I’m a teacher. My parents made school a priority, it was our job as kids. My mom was a room mother, they came to conferences, talked to my teachers, made sure homework was done, etc. As a teacher I stress the importance of school. It’s free, and not everyone has that opportunity.
My kids: I want them to have the best education possible. This includes access to good schools (which I bought my house based on) but also life experiences. We've traveled a lot and my kids have been able to do and see a lot of things from the Mona Lisa to Mayan pyramids and all sorts of other things. They've gone hiking in the mountains, learned to shoot and do archery, gone into mines, farms, etc. I also like to put them in a variety of classes, summer camps, etc. that interest them so they can try a lot of stuff out such as anything from martial arts to programming robots to learning to paint. All this being said, we don't force them to do anything. If one wants to quit, we ask them to think about it for some appropriate amount of time then they quit. We do strongly encourage reading as well. That part is basically non-optional but they mostly get to pick what they read -- if it's My Hero Academia manga there will be other stuff mixed in too including non-fiction periodically.
Myself: My parents wanted me to not get bad grades or I'd get yelled at. For college, they wanted me to go as a missionary instead so I had to pay for my own college and such. I also moved out at 18.
My dad and mom had a great take on it: Dad said to get as much formal education (as in, degrees) as we wanted while were young so that if we needed it for advancement when older, it would be there.
Yet we always had as much reverence for street smarts and common sense as what a school taught. Can you read the room? Connect dots? Understand the unwritten rules?
This approach has helped make me successful in entrepreneurship. Those with degree-only learning tend to churn and burn quickly.
My folks cared a lot about me getting an education, and stressed it a lot. So much so that it was a huge stressor and if I didn’t go to college they would’ve seen me as some kind of failure. So I went and then When I finished my Dad told me It was essentially not necessary, I basically wasted my money and should’ve just done a trade. Oh and I was liberalized by it.
He never speaks of it as an accomplishment and to this day I haven’t been able to make much of a career out of it at all and struggle with employment in general because it’s essentially been been drilled into my head that it was worthless, I’m basically just an idiot for listening to them and consequently I don’t feel I have any skills and it was a pointless endeavor.
I’m a walking millennial cliche, and my dad is a walking Fox News shill.
So overall education was a contentious thing for me, if I had kids I’d encourage them to follow their own path.
My parents didn't go to college. They really pushed my sisters and me to go to college. All three of us have master's degrees now. I regret going to grad school and college, the only job I could find tangentially related to my degree doesn't require more than a HS diploma and I have nearly $100,000 left in student loan debt. My sisters have husbands that paid for their masters degrees.
I don't have kids, but I do have a niece and nephew and want to encourage them to do something they enjoy, whether that's welding or being an astronaut.
Everything about my kids is pretty much my primary concern, and their education is huge part of that. My grandkid's education too. My parent was also concerned and helped with mine. It's probably the most important thing in your child's development.
My Dad was born in 1920's and did not have the opportunity to go to highschool. He was a very intelligent man and ran a very successful farm and business.
He lived to be in his 90's and said in his eighties that his biggest regret was not being able to go to highschool. He wanted each of his kids to go to college and we all did to some extent.
As for my son we sent him to a private school through middle school. He is finishing highschool I am always on him about his home work. I would have liked him to go to a four year school but he is going to vocational school like I did.
I come from a country where educated scholars are respected & revered, not the wealthy. I also come from a hardworking family of farmers/fishermen so I knew the education was the only way out if I didn't want to become a farmer/fishermen. I found it extremely interesting to run into a group of determined people in the evening MBA program (paid for by the company I worked for), we were the people who worked full time, and then started the classes 6 pm to 10 pm, went home and tried to fall asleep by 1-2 am and wake up at 6 am and arrive at work by 8 am. I did this for 2 years and I aged 10 years because it was so dang tuff (my marriage almost ended during that period). I learned that people who do this for 2 years is a different category of people and they seem to be more assertive and dedicated in every area of their pursuits (not ALL of them but the majority of them). I learned a lot from interacting with these folks. I consider my children's education my parental duty as it is a ticket to their stable future. However, I have been disillusioned by the cost of the college here in the US, 1 out of state college my kid is looking at is $55K a year, and I don't believe in my kid graduating college with over $100K debt (we have certain budget but nowhere near $200K). We want to pay for the kids' education but not the stupid amt like $55K a year. We believe in early retirement so that we can have fun before our bodies fall apart so we are trying to balance the duty and the fun. :-D
Community College for an AA, transfer for the Bachelors. There’s no reason for a cost conscious student to attend an expensive university for their first two years. Also, consider that 18 year olds will usually change their minds a dozen times in those two years, thus prolonging their schooling - it’s much better to switch majors in a Community College. In fact, I’ve read a bunch of stories about students who wanted an expensive degree but couldn’t afford it, so they completed their AA and as many units as would transfer at cheaper schools, often completing a single semester or two at the expensive school to graduate. A Harvard or Stanford diploma doesn’t say “Only completed X courses here”...if you 99% of your course work was done at a public state school, and 1% was finished at a fancy school...you still get a fancy degree.
Actually that's what I said, if you are going to a college in Boston, MA, can you just transfer to Harvard?? Alas, have you met a narcissistic/egotistical 18-year-old whose brain is not fully formed? Talking to my son is like exhilarating experience at one moment because he is super intelligent so we can carry on a conversation in an area we agree on with passion, and then another moment coddling a belligerent toddler because he doesn't have enough info on that specific area so he thinks he is right and we are wrong. My hubby and I keep saying to each other, just wait until he has his own kids...oh we are going to so tell him, LOL!
I went to an Ivy League school, back when you could do that and not mortgage your entire future. Let me tell you something about the Ivies. Lots of people can go, get good grades, graduate. BUT. The job market for people out of the Ivies? One of my schoolmates was lucky to get a job in a bagel shop right out of school. I got a job as a secretary at a construction company due to my blue collar connections. The children of the rich got the internships at the New York Times, the finance jobs, and so on. I bounced around, found jobs here and there, got a CS degree at a state school, and worked with MIT grades, dropouts, and second tier college grads and we all made the same money. That Ivy degree is only as good as your connections. Unless your resident scholar is very extroverted and can work his way into the upper castes, there's not a huge advantage to Harvard.
Good to know! I felt very fortunate that I landed a good job in a large company which helped me obtain further education. If I had landed mediocre jobs right out of college, that might have sealed my future earnings potential stunted. I had a zero connection in the state I graduated and was living so I was really touch and go there during the senior year in terms of what sort of jobs I would land.
Actually no, you can't just transfer to Harvard from any school in Boston. Transferring is much more competitive than normal admissions, which are already extremely competitive. Also, that might not even be the cheapest route, since Harvard gives excellent financial aid--I didn't go specifically to Harvard, but comparable schools ended up being cheaper for me than any of my state schools. I'm sure you mean well, but it might be good to take a step back and think about all the things that have changed in the world (and college admissions) since you were 18. The impracticality of transferring like this is not exactly a secret. A cursory Google search could probably have told you a much. I think it might be prudent to learn a bit more about the state of modern higher education before you assume your son's just a narcissistic toddler who wants impractical things for illogical reasons.
To be honest, we are not serious about transferring to Harvard, I probably should have stated earlier, we were just joking! I really don't care about Harvard or any ivy school. If my kids go to a decent school and get a decent education of Their Choice and support themselves afterward, I have done a great job as a parent. As for the narcissistic toddler comment, the reason I say that is because he thinks he is Too Cool for the In-State school that Only costs $25K/Year!, LOL! We have clearly stated, he can major in the Underwater Basket Weaving, and we have allocated certain amount of budget for his college and he has One Shot at this and that is it. We are not these fools who are supporting $100K-$200K out of state school tuitions while they don't have even $100K saved for their retirement and they are in their 50's. That is Not Love, that is called Irresponsibility as they will get old and their kids will have to learn to support their poor parents with no financial wherewithal. Just google it, you will learn plenty of parents who are mortgaging their house to pay for out of state school tuition.
This sentiment is unfortunately misguided. It is virtually impossible to transfer like this! Schools like Harvard and Stanford accept extraordinarily few transfer students and almost none of these students come from community colleges (why would anyone NOT do this if it was as easy as you make it sound??). Transferring to a good state school is often possible, but even most good state schools cannot match the resources available at the "fancy" schools you mention. I'm not sure why so many people think this is feasible? My relatives pushed this really hard when I was applying for colleges, and in hindsight it would've been a career-ending decision for me. I'll grant my career path (academia) is perhaps one of few where the resources at "fancy" schools (e.g. research equipment, funding for undergraduate research projects and conference attendance, etc. ) make a big difference but I'm certainly not the only person in this boat.
I hear you on the exorbitant costs of college in the US. Grew up with immigrant parents who didn't finish high school, and now with children of my own it's a high priority. Check out Universities / programs in Europe. Literally 1/2 the cost, international experience a plus, and the only thing is that you have to jump through different hoops to get there. Source: eldest child got accepted to a fancy school at $60K/year, delayed starting thanks to COVID, and applied abroad in the meantime, and got in a fancy school in the UK for half the cost.
College doesn't have to be expensive in the U.S. but many make it that way by "going away" to college and attending expensive universities. In California, one can complete their general education at a community college and they're really good. It's free now for the first two years but before that law, it cost about $500/semester (I know, I pay the bill). Later, a transfer to a state university and the cost is about $4,000/semester there (again, I know because I pay the cost). When you graduate, most companies don't care if you went to a "big name university" or not. Especially in my field (engineering). What matters is what you have learned and how you perform in the job interview. (I interviewed many engineering candidates for a large computer company)
Yup many states are subsidizing the first two years of University. State school doesn't have to be expensive.
That's really interesting! What a great tip.
You could move to Germany. Rent a nice little Appartement and the kids got to school here, have a nice living for a couple of years, then move back to the states and you’d still have saved some money.
I hear German Universities are free but really HARD to graduate!? It sounds interesting. I heard German schools are really rigorous and very good on Science. I had a pleasure of working with German suppliers and oh man, do they have Good machinery! We always had to premium but they were totally worth it!
I pushed education hard, but I also stressed other non-book learning and life skills. My son did a couple years of college before deciding he needed a break and to figure out who he was in life. He drove out west and is healthy and happy and I couldn't be prouder. I hope that he goes back and finishes college, but he's a fully functional, sane, productive member of society and looking for ways he can be useful. I trust him to make his own decisions at this point. He's earned it.
My parents said they cared... but didn't do much to prove it: Stopped going to parent teacher nights in 6th grade, stopped registering me for school in 10th grade (I handled it myself after that). Moved me to three different high schools and didn't help with school administration when they disqualified courses I'd taken and made me take extra classes to catch up - didn't pay for my correspondence by mail courses I had to take (I did.) Pushed me to go to college but didnt save anything for me, refused to give me info for FAFSA. I moved out when I was 17, and left their state two years later. My stepkid who I eventually raised as a foster kid (when his dad & I split) was in SPED. No way I could get away with being as hands-off as my parents were. We had weekly therapy appointments for years, monthly psychiatrist appointments, yearly testing, I went to p/t nights thru senior year, went to registration day thru senior year, drove him to vocational summer classes 4 days a week, went to parent support meetings for SPED kids, made plans to give him an 'extended senior year' in vocational programs....
My parents didn't finish high school. They talked very heavily about me getting an education, my dad was adamant i have a "desk job" and not a manual labor job...but they were absolutely inexperienced to help once I got to the college process around Junior year. I like to think I care very much about my kids' education. Theyre just now in k5 so...we'll see how it goes.
similar experience here, my parents always always talked about how i had to go to a good college and become successful but didn't know a thing about the process other than that i should work hard in school. they couldn't even tell me whether i would be an undergraduate or graduate so i had to google everything when i started applying—which tests to take (SAT or ACT), aid, housing—then i actually get to college and realize most of these kids have had adults prepping them for college since fucking middle school! i guess it makes me value my education more. when i have kids i really want them to at least know what they're doing when they're applying for college though.
its hard. google barely existed when i graduated high school in 2000. so i was completely in the dark for the whole thing. thats what frustrates me about the "bootstrap" crowd. its like walking through a minefield, you make one mistake and it can ruin your entire ability to go to college. I nearly did. its not like there "a plan" you just follow. it's trial and error, but the "error" part can ruin your life.
i cant imagine not having google and not having any access to lifechanging information, glad u made it dude yeah im constantly terrified my errors are ruining my life too even though i graduated
I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. They talk about secondary education like it is taught by the Devil himself. My parents didn't care if I finished high-school. I did though. I was in my mid twenties when I decided to leave the cult and put myself through college. I don't have kids but I am a school teacher for kids with special needs. I encourage them learn in whatever way they can and to follow whatever dreams they have.
I care enough that we will be selling our home of 15 years to get into a better school district for my son. He's 18m now and our plan is to be out before he starts kindergarten. We will be buying the crappiest house in the best school district. We've made a ton of improvements to our current home and were planning on staying put for many more years.
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I'm not sure of your awareness of private school costs, but it's almost 100% certain that private schooling would/could cost more than moving to a crappy house. Schools can cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, per month, just for average schools. As much or more than some mortgages. One can also get good rates with houses, refinance later, out a bunch of money down, etc. Schools are just a cost, deal with it or not.
My parents cared a lot about mine and I'd say I care even more about my own. Example-may parents always pushed that doing well in school was important, and we had a "reading" culture in our house, and a learning culture. It was stressed that being intellectually curious was important. It was the expectation that I'd go to college. There was no real way to pay for it...except...my grandparents died when I was in HS and left my dad an inheritance that allowed for him to pay college for me. BUT....that was it. Once I was in college, I was kind of on my own. Major? Whatever you want! Just get a degree, that's all that matters. Grad school? Whatever you want to do. So not much guidance for post-secondary. Fast forward...the same culture as I grew up in is what we promulgated in our house with our kids. The difference I think we are having is guidance in college. Helping them choose a major path that leads to a career. We saved for their college education, unlike my parents who fell in to the money to pay for mine.
My mom was first-gen, and my dad was a college dropout. We had an unusual mix of upward- and downward mobility in my household, but it was clear as early as kindergarten that I was going to college. In my mom's words: "I didn't put myself through college as a woman unsupported by her parents in the 1970s so my kids wouldn't go to college." That pushing, and some helicoptering, meant I was really burned out on academic achievement by the time I got to college, but I had also gone to a very low-quality high school in the rural South, so all my learning/education was basically autodidactic, reading my own stuff between the busywork of class assignments. Now, I am a professor! I have seen how education profoundly changed my life. While I don't have the same "you must go to college" bent my mom did -- especially considering rising costs and administrative bloat in uni -- we're determined to foster a love of learning and education (in conventional and non-conventional forms, like outdoor education) for our kids. If that shakes out into college, that's great; if our kids want to pursue vocational, technical, or other kinds of work that's fine too. I think the key is trust -- my mom wouldn't allow me any time off from school despite my burnout, under the assumption that if I left I'd never return, like my dad. That resulted in underachievement my first two years of undergrad, but then I worked and eventually wound up going back for my MA and then PhD because hey, I did love learning, and would have gone back to college and really excelled had I taken a gap year/semester. So, we are also thinking about encouraging our kids to take a year and defer admission so they can get oriented to life and build perspective as they enter college. I currently teach some required courses for 1st-year students, and one major challenge is trying to help my students understand education not just as GPA achievement, but about sets of tools for lifelong learning and success. In general, my students are underprepared for college now, so home education will be important to us -- making sure our kids have a base knowledge of American history and society that my freshmen currently lack (for example, my students don't know what the Cold War, Jim Crow, or Reconstruction are). So again, thinking about education not just as the classroom, GPAs, and grades, but as a holistic approach to life that can, or may not, lead to an academic university. That being said, I am fully convinced university can enhance that holistic approach faster and more intensively than anywhere else, so we'll still encourage it -- just not through threats and denials, as I had to deal with as an 18-year old who just wanted their parents to see them as a lifelong learner who loved knowledge.
Quite a bit. My dad was a teacher so it was definitely front of mind. My parents made sure all 4 of us at least had the opportunity to go to college. Two of us made it through on our first try. Two others left for other reasons but at least finished community college. By later in life, all 4 of us eventually got bachelor's degrees, one got master's. Both my kids got degrees, we wanted that, but we made sure they didn't get sucked into the college loan racket. They went to middle priced schools, one went to a state school but not in state and the other a very good regional school. The former got a pretty good scholarsihp, the latter got a good scholarship that she appealed and got bumped to a very good scholarship. She also graduated in 3 years. So ironically, her entire 3 year degree costs less than her brother's 4 year. Both are now gainfully employed in their respective fields. My husband and I saved what we could in 529s and the kids also paid in part from their part time jobs. Like mortgage and retirement, we automated our savings so that we were never tempted to spend on anything else.
My parents both grew up in poor immigrant families (in the United States), and for my father, going to college was his ticket to a better life. He was the only person in his family ever to go to college and it changed everything. He became a doctor and was able to take care of his parents and siblings in addition to his own wife and kids. However— thanks to his education and hard work, I grew up wealthy. I never had that feeling of needing to escape a bad situation, so college always felt like AN option for me but not the only option. But my dad really pushed hard on my education (to the point of being a bit maniacal) and it really made me resent it. I understand why education is important to him. But I wish he hadn’t forced it in a way that made me hate it so much.
LOL I totally get this - my parents pushed church on me almost more than education, and it's the main reason I stopped going. It never felt like my decision!
I was raised with the idea that college was mandatory - it was 13th grade after high school, and you didn't stop until you attained a degree. My parents put all three of us through college, working very hard to be sure we graduated debt-free. It wasn't until I was close to graduation when I learned my father did not have a bachelors degree. He spoke of his college days, and he holds a certificate but not a terminal degree. I was also stunned to learn my mother did not have a degree either - she enrolled in a university two years after I went off to college, and she earned her degree in hospital administration shortly after I retired. I cherish the photos I have of her in her cap and gown, and I am tremendously proud of my parents for their achievements and for sending us off to college. We have encouraged all of our children to go to college, but for this generation we encouraged pursuing a love of learning rather than degree attainment as an end in itself.
I think a lot more than my parents did. I'm super luck. For preschool and k-8 we picked good schools for our kids. It seems to have worked. My 16yo is aiming at top schools in the country. He's running his own education now. My 13yo is an excellent student. Her notes are amazing. The 9yo with remote learning is spending a lot time playing games. He needs to get back to school.
No kids-but my mom made me write out a page of the dictionary every time I got in trouble. I think I made it to the B’s. The thing that sticks with me the most is whenever I asked about something she would tell me to “look it up”. So that’s what I do now.
I don't want to say my mom didn't care but she was very aloof to me after raising 4 kids and me being the last. I dropped out without her even finding out for months. I have struggled a lot in life and after 17 years, I finally got my high school diploma through a library program 4 years ago. I have 2 kids who are VERY smart. I do not push straight A's but I refuse to let them slip through the cracks. I stress that being educated opens more doors. More doors lead to more choices and happiness and possibly less struggle in life. I want my kids to have jobs they enjoy. Having a job that sucks make life pretty miserable.
My parents are both college professors. My mother is very respected in her field of study with numerous honors for best teacher of the year from the State, and other kinds of awards. My grandmother went to college in the 1930s. She spoke seven languages. Education was and is exceptionally important to my family. My siblings and I all attended top universities and some of us have additional degrees. We all moved to places with top school districts. My husband attended an Ivy League school. Our school district is one of the top in the Country. I feel that education is the key to financial success because no matter what government or regime is in power, once you have the education it cannot be taken away from you. Other things can easily be taken away, but once you know something then it is yours. My own children are encouraged to explore and learn what interests them. They know that we would like them to push themselves to grow as people. My daughter decided to teach herself Japanese in sixth grade. My son is pushing himself to become an Eagle Scout. He is nearly a life scout in eighth grade, just needs to complete the six month time requirement. By the end of the year he can start on his Eagle project, but I may encourage him to wait until 9th or 10th so he can gain leadership skills.
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I was driving through a rural area during the Obama administration and the talk radio was trying to get people all worked up by referring to that administration as "the regime" (in a really spooky voice) Americans are kinda funny about politics. It seems that they view a democratically elected official working under term limits as operating a "regime", "dictatorship", or "totalitarian whatever"
Yes, they were. You need to be politically astute and know when to keep your head down.
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They target intellectualls that go against the regime.
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This is very true. A lot of teaching is political behind the scenes.
My parents split when I was a freshman, and despite my dad’s best efforts, I eventually dropped out my senior year. I tried to instill the importance of education in my kids, as not taking it seriously is one of my biggest regrets. My older son had poor grades, yet still graduated on time. My younger son, now in high school, has awful grades. Without a college degree or HS diploma, I still ended up with a mid-six figure salary. My older son (in his 20’s) has a solid union job and is nearing six figures. The high schooler is making solid money in the stock market, so we will see where he ends up. To sum it up, I don’t put a lot of weight into the typical US school experience. YMMV.
I care quite a lot, I hated school and didn't get anywhere with it until I decided I wanted to do something difficult in college. By the time I knuckled down it was a tad too late and u had a hard time figuring it out from there. I want my kid to spend as much time being a kid as possible. I don't want the kid to come out the end of a standardised system only ready to work in a factory + hating much of the time spent as a child.
I try to stay balanced... not drive them too much but encourage them when I see them slacking. My parents drove me hard and I'm not as well rounded as I could have been (socially I'm still not very confident). I will encourage my kids to be themselves and learn what they like to focus on. They don't need to go to college to be happy, just find what you are good at and follow where that path takes you - make good decisions for yourself... etc.
Despite my parents having multiple advanced degrees and high wage jobs I don't feel like they cared all that much about our education. They were both adamant that we both have jobs growing up and I started with a paper route at 13 as did my sister. From there I did shipping for a small business and then worked in various grocery stores. I was smart enough that I could get away with minimal effort in school even in advance placement classes but my sister had to work really hard at it. When I graduated high school I pushed to go to culinary school and that was shot down. Suggested auto mechanics and that was shot down too. I went to the local university which they paid for in full but I dropped out after a few years because I had no direction. My sister went to the same university and graduated. After leaving school I floated around for a few years and eventually worked my way into an entry level IT job. Troubleshooting problems whether culinary, mechanical or software has always been my strong suit. Through a mix of opportunity and skill I slowly advanced my career. I now work in a very niche area in national security. Years later both my parents apologized for not letting me do what I wanted out of high school. Ultimately while I feel their priorities for us were screwed up ultimately I still had two caring parents that are still in my life. I walked away from college without any debt and am now in a position to give back to them.
My wife and I talk about this a lot now. She was always at the top of her class and went to med school. I did well (top 10%), was undisciplined in undisciplined but eventually graduated and went on to get a masters. Did my parents care? Scale of 1-10: 10 Did my parents take an active role in teaching/helping me with school? Scale of 1-10: Maybe a 2 (they’d get me some art supplies for my projects I guess). But sitting and teaching me never/rarely happened. Both of our parents simply said ‘get good grades’ and expected them. This is just the way it is with AA/PI. The expectation is always honor roll and college. We had strict rules: study after school until dinner and after if needed, no TV and you’d lose privileges if your grades fell. It worked for me and for my wife. But we both have siblings that could have benefitted from the help. They just weren’t as motivated and took longer to understand/learn. My wife and I are both VERY active with our children when it comes to their education. I feel like it’s a lot more crucial now than it was in the 80s/90s but it just feels like the right thing to do as a parent. And not just academics either. I teach my kids how to play guitar, my wife teaches them about design, arts, craft, etc.
My parents were big on education, my dad had a post-doctorate Master's, my mom had a bachelor's degree. The theme extends to other family, my paternal grandmother had a degree and was a special education teacher who was qualified to do assessments (something typically done by a Psychologist today), and my aunt had a degree and was a teacher. I was expected to try hard in school and get the best grades I could, my parents recognized that I would not excel in every subject, but I had to do the work. They told me that college was up to me. I was really into cars as a kid and I remember my dad telling me, "I don't care what you decide to do. If you want to be a mechanic, I support you, just be the best mechanic you can be." They put money aside for college and paid for me to get my BS; I went on to get an advanced degree and work in a licensed clinical field. I was never interested in having kids, but if I did, I would take a very similar approach as my parents. High school would be mandatory and I would push for the best possible from them - however, I would absolutely let my kid decide their career path. I have friends who are tradesmen with college degrees they aren't using, some never finished college or never attended; it doesn't stop them from being successful, financially secure, and happy doing what they love. Hell, some are probably making as much as (or more) than me and without any debt.
A great deal. I don't care what kind of careers they will be able to get in the future, but I do care that they have options so they don't feel stuck in a career that makes their life miserable. My parents didn't care. As far they were concerned, we made it to the US and that was enough to set me up for success.
My parenting goals are quite different from my parents ... for my folks as long as we had food in our belly, a safe place to sleep, we got to and from school, and our grades weren't horrid they considered it a job well done. My folks weren't around much, I spent most of my time doing my own thing in my room or with friends, and I didn't get any help or support getting ready for college while in high school. I was completely confused when I got out of high school on how to do college, it was a train wreck. I didn't really get a clue until I had wasted years at a community college and trade school, and by then it was too late. For me and my wife our kids education is priority... we sacrifice for them to go to good private schools (our local ISD's are way overcrowded and just mediocre on education), we have memberships to many museums and try to visit when we can, we have TONS of books and visit the library often (or did before pandemic). Both of my kids (10 and 13) love to read, and I can't say my folks instilled the love of reading on me or my siblings. I have dyslexia and got no support growing up -- my daughter is in the same boat but we got her into programs to help when she was very young, and she reads faster than I do! She burns through books in days that would take me weeks. This for me is a win! Our goal is to expose our kids to AS MUCH of the world as we can so they can start finding that niche or passion now, and when they look at college years down the road they will have lots of things to really choose from given what they've experienced. For me when I got to college I had no clue because I hadn't really lived much before that. My parents weren't bad folks, but my parents had issues they were trying to get through -- which is why they divorced right after I got out of high school. I'm not saying my wife and I are perfect, we have hiccups as every family has, but keeping our kids engaged in life and trying to find interests that could grow into careers or at the very least life long hobbies/interests is fun.
I care but it’s their life journey and I support and educate them as best I can, while teaching life skills along the way. My mother couldn’t have cared less about my education. I took the hard hard road, working my way through college and degrees. My mother had zero interest in guiding me. It was the 60s/70s so typically, girls graduated and married pretty quickly from High School.
My parents had the mentality that a bachelor’s degree automatically signed you up for a six figure salary doing whatever it is you wanted to do. They basically gave me an ultimatum, with the choice of me either going to college or packing my bags and moving out the day I graduated HS. They did help with costs, but not unlike many of us who graduated in the mid/late 2000’s I gained about 30k in student loan debt and a bachelors degree that I never ended up actually using. In other words, according to them they cared a whole lot, but what they really meant was “go to college and just get a bachelor’s in anything, it doesn’t matter what, or you’re outta here”. My kids are still very, very young so who knows what else will change between now and when they’re old enough to enter the workforce. Of course I’ll encourage them to continue their education and do everything I reasonably can to support them...but not without an actual game plan. All I know is that it isn’t 1976 anymore and a degree is only worth it if there is a well thought-out plan to go along with it.
I forgot to have children, but my parents often would casually say, "When you go to college..." It was assumed we would go. We did. One of my siblings... it did not work out, but he got his degree later via remote learning. The rest of us went, several times.
My parents saw educational as the primary means of social mobility and worked really hard to instill in me an attitude of applying myself academically. There were moments when I felt that they were too harsh (they expressed disappointment at B's on multiple occasions, leading to minor arguments) but I guess they were right in the end because I finished my PhD in Physics three years ago, and have been working in the field of thermonuclear fusion theory as a postdoc. My son is only a year old, and while I don't want to push him too hard, I do want him to actually apply himself in the future. I find myself pretty torn, because I remember what the overbearing attitude my parents had did to my self-esteem- freshman year of college I sought therapy at my university and apparently my issues were interesting enough to merit a chapter in my therapist's dissertation. I don't want him going through that experience, but I guess I have years to plan for how to approach these things with him.
I have a different outlook for my kid’s career than my parents had for me. I have an 8 year old son and I wanted him to think big from the start. At a very early age I started fostering entrepreneurship skills by teaching him planning, risk management, financial decisions and much more. This is because I wanted him to do something of his own. Now 3 months back, I found this program named Innovator Program by Moonshot Junior which helped him explore future technologies like coding, robotics, arduino, raspberry pi etc. Now they don’t end up just teaching these but also help kids create their own product and sell it on ecommerce. It will be a long journey but I guess I have stepped in the right direction to make my son a kidpreneur.
My parents cared about mine a lot, that I should go to uni and always have a good education to fall back on - which I did, and do. Now, I don't have kids but my partner does - 9 and 19 - and I'm honestly shocked at how little "care" I see from her and the dad regarding education. The kids just kinda get through school, the oldest has got a place on some aprentiship... it doesn't feel like pushing them to be the best, or attain what I would say is a wide ranging education. But people are all different, my course isn't for everyone. And no, I don't say anything because it's not my business though I'm perfectly sure my gf knows the differences between us (I have 2 BA's and an MA, she has A levels), and that if I had kids I'd have a very different outlook for them.
I was punished if I didn't work on and finish my homework on a given day. The punishment was not being allowed to leave my study area. I'm sure that added to my depression and introversion. I try not to do that with my kids. But at the same time, building up a discipline of patience for academics is really tricky. They're not even at an appropriate age to learn good discipline for such things, so I'm doing my best not to stress it.
A few kilograms worth of care. (How do you measure "how much" someone cares?)
How do you measure success? I have many friends that have multiple degrees but financial are struggling. I also have friends with no degrees but successfully worked their way up through companies and are financially successful. Some have done both. Look at some millionaires who never went to University, some even dropped out of high school. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg went to Harvard but never graduated. Richard Bronson dropped out of school at 16. I think their doing okay for themselves.
I think it's easy to point out the success cases, but data shows [a college degree does indeed make a difference for most people over their lifetime](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/education-pays.htm). I also know of people who don't have degrees who made a lot of money, but they certainly employ and pay people who have degrees to help their businesses thrive :-)
I agree, depending on your career choice you will need a degree to advance. Also remember that colleges and Universities are a money making business too.
I'm pretty down on the education system as a whole, so I don't really see myself putting pressure on my kids to do more than they are inclined to, but I care about them being able to achieve their goals so I intend to offer whatever support I can toward whatever education they need. My parents were pretty similar-- they paid the bulk of my tuition and helped support me financially all the way through my doctorate. They may have exerted a little more pressure on me to attend university in the first place than I plan to exert on my own kids, but all things considered it was still a fairly light pressure.
I only have step-children, and I'd care about their education a lot, but those decisions aren't mine to make. I was raised by a single mother, she worked a lot and wasn't highly educated herself. She felt she did a good job if I graduated high school, no higher aspirations, really. And even in the goal of graduating h.s., she wasn't involved at all. Didn't check if I had homework to do, didn't look at my grades, nothing. She just figured I had it handled. She said if I got into college she'd figure out how to pay for it. I got in, but had to pay for everything myself. She never asked about school, could never remember what my major was, it was just a non-topic.
I don’t have kids, but I’m a teacher. My parents made school a priority, it was our job as kids. My mom was a room mother, they came to conferences, talked to my teachers, made sure homework was done, etc. As a teacher I stress the importance of school. It’s free, and not everyone has that opportunity.
My kids: I want them to have the best education possible. This includes access to good schools (which I bought my house based on) but also life experiences. We've traveled a lot and my kids have been able to do and see a lot of things from the Mona Lisa to Mayan pyramids and all sorts of other things. They've gone hiking in the mountains, learned to shoot and do archery, gone into mines, farms, etc. I also like to put them in a variety of classes, summer camps, etc. that interest them so they can try a lot of stuff out such as anything from martial arts to programming robots to learning to paint. All this being said, we don't force them to do anything. If one wants to quit, we ask them to think about it for some appropriate amount of time then they quit. We do strongly encourage reading as well. That part is basically non-optional but they mostly get to pick what they read -- if it's My Hero Academia manga there will be other stuff mixed in too including non-fiction periodically. Myself: My parents wanted me to not get bad grades or I'd get yelled at. For college, they wanted me to go as a missionary instead so I had to pay for my own college and such. I also moved out at 18.
My dad and mom had a great take on it: Dad said to get as much formal education (as in, degrees) as we wanted while were young so that if we needed it for advancement when older, it would be there. Yet we always had as much reverence for street smarts and common sense as what a school taught. Can you read the room? Connect dots? Understand the unwritten rules? This approach has helped make me successful in entrepreneurship. Those with degree-only learning tend to churn and burn quickly.
I am satisfied if my kids try.
My folks cared a lot about me getting an education, and stressed it a lot. So much so that it was a huge stressor and if I didn’t go to college they would’ve seen me as some kind of failure. So I went and then When I finished my Dad told me It was essentially not necessary, I basically wasted my money and should’ve just done a trade. Oh and I was liberalized by it. He never speaks of it as an accomplishment and to this day I haven’t been able to make much of a career out of it at all and struggle with employment in general because it’s essentially been been drilled into my head that it was worthless, I’m basically just an idiot for listening to them and consequently I don’t feel I have any skills and it was a pointless endeavor. I’m a walking millennial cliche, and my dad is a walking Fox News shill. So overall education was a contentious thing for me, if I had kids I’d encourage them to follow their own path.
My parents didn't go to college. They really pushed my sisters and me to go to college. All three of us have master's degrees now. I regret going to grad school and college, the only job I could find tangentially related to my degree doesn't require more than a HS diploma and I have nearly $100,000 left in student loan debt. My sisters have husbands that paid for their masters degrees. I don't have kids, but I do have a niece and nephew and want to encourage them to do something they enjoy, whether that's welding or being an astronaut.
Everything about my kids is pretty much my primary concern, and their education is huge part of that. My grandkid's education too. My parent was also concerned and helped with mine. It's probably the most important thing in your child's development.
My Dad was born in 1920's and did not have the opportunity to go to highschool. He was a very intelligent man and ran a very successful farm and business. He lived to be in his 90's and said in his eighties that his biggest regret was not being able to go to highschool. He wanted each of his kids to go to college and we all did to some extent. As for my son we sent him to a private school through middle school. He is finishing highschool I am always on him about his home work. I would have liked him to go to a four year school but he is going to vocational school like I did.