From: elonich@cbnewse.cb.att.com (diane.e.pedersen)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: How to get daughter more career-minded?
Date: 28 Sep 92 17:57:11 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville IL

In article <1992Sep28.160918.12999@engage.pko.dec.com>, pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius) writes:
> 
> Then, a few weeks ago, I took her to the doctor for her regular
> checkup.  On our way back, I asked her: "Do you want to be a
> doctor when you grow up?"  Her answer shocked me.  "No," she said
> "I want to get married."  "But you can be a doctor and get married
> too" I tried to tell her that there is really no conflict here.
> "No," she said "I want to be a mom and have kids."  "But you can
> be a mom, have kids, and be a doctor at the same time." I was trying
> my best to explain to her.  "No," her voice became lauder "I don't
> want to be a doctor.  I want to get married when I grow up."
> 
> obviously picked up some other ideas.  Apparently she watched
> the "Little Mermaid" at the school for she sometimes told us
> about that story and asked us buy her that tape.  We have told
> her many times that Ariel is not really a good girl because she
> only wants to play but does not want to study and do some useful
> things.  I guess we have yet to get our message across.
> 

It seems like you're pushing her a lot for a 4-year-old!

If you nurture her to become the best she can be, keeping
HER interests a priority, she will evolve career interest 
as she grows.

Being very bright does not automatically mean she's advanced
emotionally as well.  Most 4-year-olds have very black/white
views of the world, as they attempt to learn the rules and
roles.  

It will probably take a while, but you can teach her that
many Mommy's ALSO have a job besides Mommyhood.  Try to
pick mothers with outside careers (MOCs -- an new label?)
as your role models.  

And don't choose her career for her, based on the world's
view of status.  It makes it too likely that she will
either a) pick a career to please you that she may not
like or maximize her potential in, or b) rebel totally
and jump into something contrary to what you want, and 
be so busy rebelling that she won't make a good choice
for her interests and abilities.  

You keep pushing "doctor", yet maybe she'd end up preferring
to work in the growing field of creatively visualizing data,
using computers, art, and music.  Or doing well in some
field that hasn't been invented yet.

Up to about 4th grade, I insisted I wanted to be a teacher.
Now I'm a software engineer.

My 2nd-grader wants to be a "Train Driver".  He chose this
profession because he a) likes trains b) won't need college
for it and c) thinks they don't do anything but sit in the
locomtive and look out the window and apply brakes once in
a while (he doesn't want to drive the subway becasue there
are too many starts and stops!).  As he is quite bright,
we are not thrilled with this career choice, but we
accept it (hoping it will change with time), and restrict
our opinions to things like "well, usually you get paid
more if you go to college", "college is fun", "learning
is fun", "what do you enjoy doing?"
-- 
Diane Pedersen
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Naperville, Illinois
att!ihlpe!elonich
Newsgroups: misc.kids