I have a 16-year-old son. I’m in my early 30s (had him very young) and a professional footballer. My son also dreams of becoming a successful footballer (he’s been playing since he was 6), but he’s just… not great. He’s good, but not great - and in this extremely competitive industry you need to be at least great in order to even stand a chance. So I told him, as someone who’s been doing this for a very, very long time & is active in this sphere, that he should find another, more attainable dream. He took it as me not believing in him, but I’m just objective and realistic.
at 9 my mother called me stupid and that I wouldn’t go far unless I tried harder
at 12 a teacher told me that I wouldn’t amount to much because I was a loser
at 15 my father gave up on me and stopped trying to teach me anything and just yelled at me everyday calling me worthless
at 20 I left home and moved in with a batshit crazy girl, became homeless on my 21st bday.
I moved back home. got called a failure, a lot.
got another job. they trained me. they supported me.
met a girl, she believed in me, supported me
moved out together, went to college.
got a degree, and a job
got married, had kids
I now make six figures. own a large house. very successful, mostly happy(state of the world concerns me).
I tell you this as someone who has been told “the truth”.
To a kid, what their parents think of them means everything. they see you as the example, not only, but a hero as well.
what you just did broke the image they had of you. you’re not the hero anymore. you’re just like every other obstacle they see every single day.
as a parent you must support your child, but you can be creative with it. share their hobby with them, start a new one with them, talk to them about what their backup plans. use your own life experience to help guide them to a decision of their own.
brutal honesty gets you two things
apologize to your kid. you want to share some brutal honesty with them? share how big of a fucking moron you are with them. share how hard you try to be a good loving parent but still make mistakes.
be vulnerable with your child, because you stripped away their armor and now they feel vulnerable around you.
only then can you move past this and help guide them to where they want to be.
I didn’t have this life trajectory, but I have another experience and don’t really agree with this. My parents have always been loving and supporting of me. They saw me majoring in science and encouraged me. Once or twice my dad told me he thought I’d be a good audio engineer, but I never really took him seriously.
Well I probably wasn’t cut out to be a STEM worker, or at least I haven’t figured it out yet and I’m getting pretty old. Just working dead end jobs and being too anxious to try for better jobs.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I listened to my dad a little better, or if anyone had been able to tell me while I was struggling in my stem classes, that maybe I was aiming at the wrong thing, and to keep looking…
There’s no way your dad could have known what was going to happen. There’s no way people around you could have known that you were in a career path that wasn’t going to work out well for you. Nobody can guarantee the future like that.
The other thing is that even if you’re working in STEM, to follow up with your example, there are thousands of different jobs that all feel totally different to people working them. It’s quite possible that you could initially hate the field, then make some lateral shift, and find a position that is halfway decent. Here again, nobody knows what’s going to be good for you.
If you want responsible career advice, it’s quite simple. Because there aren’t guarantees, you might want to develop several different skill sets, so that you’re in a better position to deal with unknown future changes. If you think you can learn how to do one simple thing and then have 45 years of happiness doing it, flip a coin and hope luck is on your side.
I’m sorry, but the irony of not becoming an audio engineer because you didn’t listen is really something.
Hehe that is pretty funny thanks for that :p
speaking as a parent this is one of my worst fears. I want to help support my kids in whatever drives them. I know though, at some point that my kids will make their own decisions that have their own life changing repercussions. the best I can do is impart my own wisdom on them early to allow them to make better decisions when that time comes.
I’ll impart some of my own worldly knowledge on you if you don’t mind. You’re never too old to do what you want to do. it won’t be easy, but nothing that makes your life better ever is. I was in my 30s once I turned my life around. I’ll never be where I wanted to be, but I’m a lot further than I would have been had I never tried. find what you’re good at and drives you and don’t ever be ashamed of wherever that leads you. to thine own self be true.
I’m sorry that you didn’t get the support you needed, but as an adult remember, our parents are only human and make mistakes too. this doesn’t mean what they did was acceptable, but rather allows you to acknowledge the actions and move on from them.
I accepted my father some years after his death, and have acknowledged my mother’s shortcomings. what has driven me to that point is my own failings as a parent. I realized that I was making the same mistakes they were just by trying to not become them. my goal as a parent was literally “don’t be like mom or dad”. now, my goal is “be the dad my kids need”.
They don’t always get what they want, but I’m always willing to listen if it’s important enough to them. I love my kids, would do anything for them if it’s in their self-interest. I hope they look back as adults and realize that so they don’t have to waste years on battling the same demons I had.
thanks for sharing.
This is a life at stake. Don’t tell this guy to be a pushover to spare a feeling. It’s way WAY worse to fuck a whole life thinking you’ve got a career that your parents know something about when you DONT.
This is a shitty, entitled take. Some people are good at some things. Some are good at others. Don’t gaslight your kid to think he’s an astronaut and let the world teach a lesson. That makes you a SHIT parent.
You know who makes 6 figures? A fucking lot of people. Cool, good on you, you’re not a unicorn.
Life at stake?
Eh no, not knowing that you should have a backup plan if you want to do stuff like football is far from ruining a whole life.
Let’s say that they figure out that football is a no go at 25 or something ridiculous like that, what happens? Nothing. They can just do something else, they can even study and get some good education if they want. Switching careers isn’t impossible like you make it out to be. Hell, depending on where you live you might even get paid by the government to get a better education.
Let the kid do football but encourage them to do other stuff too (like getting a good education).
I see we’re using the big dictionary today. words like gaslight and astronaut. I bet you were even excited to use the word unicorn.
feel like you cut me down a few notches? put me in my place, did you?
got news for you, you’re going to need to try a lot harder than that to cut me down.
your attempt was pathetic tbh. 20 years of mental abuse killed something inside me that makes people like you weak and forgettable.
I found my strength, can you say the same?
Guy says to not tear down people. Then tears down people.
what a shitty take.
I shared a part of myself to the community. then got called shitty and entitled.
fuck you, dick.
Generalized animosity from a parent to their child is the not the same as seeing a niche interest that most likely won’t work out based on facts.
You’re giving survivorship bias for two completely different situations. He’s not telling his kid he can’t do anything. He’s being very specific, and that specific thing is also already very difficult to obtain for anybody, let alone those with great skills.
And you’re saying the lessons from one thing aren’t directly applicable to the other when they are. It’s like saying no one who was ever physically abused as a child can ever talk about why hitting a child is bad because they’re just giving survivorship bias for two completely different situations. The lack of belief still hurts whether it’s an isolated incident or a pattern, and OP needs to know that.
You’re right, I am saying it’s not directly applicable.
You can use parts of it to make an example, but that’s not what they did. They basically said you’ve ruined the relationship because that’s what they experienced their whole like till they met their partner.
unfortunately I didn’t mean for it to be read that way.
from ages 9-20 I was in a world where I was berated and called a failure because I was never shown how to apply myself. their form of “tough love” and “brutal honesty” only alienated me further from success.
they never once taught me HOW to apply myself and only pushed me deeper into a hole where I truly believed it was impossible for me to apply myself because I was “just a failure anyway”.
Once I received the support on how I could apply myself successfully, I was able to discern a path forward for myself and my future. when I met my gf at the time she was truly remarkable and supported me more than I could ever imagine. she’s the one who talked me into going to college.
unsolicited “brutal honesty” is akin to emotional and verbal abuse in my opinion because, to the victim, it is indiscernible. the outcome is the same, damage to motivations and a remodeling of perceptions of a foundationally important character in your life.
I loved my mother unconditionally until I was 9. when she called me stupid, I have no remembrance of what it was over, nor what transpired after. All I remember is realizing that the bond and love we shared(so I thought) was circumstantial and based on how intelligent I was in her eyes.