mandatory parenting licences

[freckles_and_doubt]

Sometimes I think various non-human species have it right: as soon as their offspring are vaguely ambulatory and don't need to have their food actually regurgitated for them, push them the hell out of the nest, to eat or be eaten in the big wide world entirely on their own merits. This prevents the kind of scenario I often have to deal with in curriculum advice, viz. innocent first-years dragging their feet into a degree because their parents, far from pushing them out of the nest, are pushing them into being a replica of the parents themselves, or into some imagined notion of competitiveness in the big wide world, regardless of whether this is directly opposed to the inclinations of the individual concerned. This is the kind of thing, she says darkly, which leads to a three-year academic record with a string of fails and absents for, say, engineering, followed by a year of firsts for English or Religious Studies. You can register a student for anything you like, but you can't make 'em think. The intelligent ones in particular are very good at Dumb Insolence. I can only say that it's poetic justice that the parents should have to pay for it all.

Today's example was particularly egregious. The student had applied, and been accepted for, one of the Fine Arts degrees, which I know is horribly competitive and demands actual talent as well as stellar Matric results, and which is also pretty darned useful in the job market. She was not only accepted, she was awarded a bursary. Except that she was asking me to sign off on a standard Humanities curriculum, no fine art in sight. Reason: her mother had vetoed the art degree, wanting darling daughter to major, and go on to postgrad, in a particular Humanities subject for no other reason than because the rest of the family - both parents and two other siblings - had done it. The subject, may I add, was one in which the student herself had no interest at all.

This student was a well-brung-up child who dutifully registered for the mandated courses in the face of all my subversive attempts to make her defy the hell out of her parents. I hope she wasn't too disconcerted by the way her curriculum adviser was frothing at the mouth, and that she plucks up the courage to grab her own life in both hands at some stage in her university career.

But I am forced to return to my oft-repeated mantra: "The more I see of other people's parents, the more I realise how incredibly lucky I am with mine." Word.

Comments

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Amen to that, sister. I've never understood how people can be so meek about things like that; but then I was also lucky enough to have parents who were happy as long as I was happy.

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Btw, shouldn't that be "mandatory parenting licences", with a "c"? Unless you're using the American spelling, in which case I apologise. ;)

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

You play dangerous games, my friend.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hah! thought it looked wrong, but I typed it late at night after a 6-hour curriculum advice stint, which means I didn't have a vestige of brain worth mentioning. Mea culpa. Shame prevents me from responding as you richly deserve to that crack about American ;>.

Also, cute icon.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

p.s. Bother. LJ won't let me use a strike tag in the heading, so I had to correct that silently. This is not an attempt to weasel out of responsibility for grammatical malfeasance, although as a side-effect it's not unappreciated :>.

[(Anonymous)]

Now THAT icon I like. (Um. You know. Not that I don't like the others and all.)

scroob

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Owls and grammar in one icon - nothing like conflating major obsessions :>.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Recall CH, a student you and I (and starmadeshadow and schedule5 oddly enough) taught. His parents said "Our son, of course you may study mathsandphysics or English, whichever makes you happiest. Just note, that if you study mathsandphysics we shall pay for it, otherwise you shall." He was fairly sanguine about it, I recall, enjoying both, as he did. (And excelling at both, the bastard.) schedule5 will recall him for his obeisance to her hair colour ...
*musing*
I wonder what happened to him?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Oh, him. I liked him. He survived rather well the extremely disconcerting experience of discovering that all your tutors are, in fact, leagued together in some kind of weird secret society.

Interesting hair colour choices, too.

I've long thought parenting should be licensed

[bend-gules.livejournal.com]

though the working out of the details could be tricky.

In the UK the gov't is now trying to institute parenting courses for parents whose 'troubled' teens are getting under Law's feet. Bit late to start having some spine and setting limits, IMO.

It also comes across as rather patronizing; I've only heard of 'poor' people going to these courses. I'm waiting to hear of upper-middle-class parents in Chelsea having to take the courses. Oddly, I haven't heard of any rich kids getting ASBOs either.

Parents are within their rights to fund or not fund certain studies, according to their values. (A good friend agreed to fund any studies his daughter pursued, *except* any studies at a Mormon university. Can't say I blame him! But guess where she went...)

But if their kid decides to take the plunge and go ahead with the 'undesireable' course, I think you've given up your right to comment, speculate, argue, pick on, and generally undermine your kid's decision and sabotage their efforts.

Re: I've long thought parenting should be licensed

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Definitely too late by the time they're troubled teens. The parenting exam should be instituted before you're allowed to stop using contraceptives. As usual, I cite Bujold's Beta Colony, wistfully ;>.

I'm not sure that I agree parents are unconditionally allowed to fund only certain studies. In the case of fundamental religious disagreement, possibly. But I don't think parenthood is a licence to produce a carbon-copy of yourself: as a good parent, I think you need to respect the rights of your child as an individual, even if that individual isn't running their life as you would run yours. To me, it seems that a lot of parents who are trying to force their offspring into a particular path are doing it because they're either living through them (i.e. making the kid be something the parent always wanted to be but couldn't) or are too insecure to handle the notion of their child making different choices, as that would invalidate their own. Withholding money as a way of enforcing life choices is a nasty form of blackmail exploiting a hugely unbalanced power relationship which is created by simply ignoring the idea that you might actually have obligations to your child.

Love your porcupine icon, btw! Porcupines are wonderful beasties.

[dragonroost.livejournal.com]

A GP once told me that the best thing you can do in life is choose the right parents. It's kooky, but it made me feel a whole bunch better when he said it. I get to check that box on my report card =)