4073: Feel Invisible Matter
I deleted some of my queue 'cause all it does is make me look as petty as this:Q. Good gift?
As we're discussing the holidays today, I'm hoping you could share your thoughts on using holiday gifting as a platform to give a well-meaning nudge in a new life direction? My adult daughter (now in her 30s) has been something of a disappointment in terms of her career development. Most other members of the family of her generation are extremely successful doctors, lawyers, executives, etc. She is a mid-level manager, and although she has a good income and clearly enjoys her job, she doesn't seem terribly ambitious. I am just worried she is coasting a bit and being somewhat lazy, selling herself short. Greater achievement is just expected in our family and it is frankly somewhat embarrassing to me. I've tried to discuss this with her numerous times, but she insists she is happy with her life as-is. Would it be horrible of me to offer the first year of law school tuition as a holiday gift to motivate her to do more with her life? Or should I assume the cause of her lack of motivation is something deeper, such as depression, and offer to pay for therapy/treatment?
A. Carolyn Hax :
I have two ways I can go with this. I can treat your question as a joke plant intended to get me all fired up, or I can treat it as if you're serious about this and have no idea that it's so judgmental and controlling that it verges on a parody of pushy parents.
I'm going to go with (b), just in case.
As a holiday gift to your daughter, love her for who she is, and get yourself some therapy, to help you find out why you need so badly for your offspring to fit some arbitrary definition of "success."
Aren't we in a recession? Mid-level manager is fucking good. Less stress than those other jobs, too, especially when lots of executives are under fire for being rich and greedy.
Anyway, I don't have a lot. I keep getting small reminders that I haven't done a lot and don't know much about how I should handle that--gad forbid I have ended up being the daughter in that Q and unemployed as I am. While I think it's interesting to learn some of everything, if my folks wanted me to go to law school, I would've told them to save their money [my folks aren't the type I would tell to shove it].
[[not that I think lawyers are scum like most people do, 'cause some of my friends went into law, but I just don't see myself as a She-Hulk]]
[[[or Naruhodou Ryuuichi, even]]]
This is discouraging, incidentally, but not exactly surprising. [Thankfully no one ever asks me. Just never seems relevant--imagine!]
[[Tl;dr: the URL says everything =p ]]
[[[I do have other links, but that's enough for one post]]]
Forgot to write up the last BGN, which was really UMVC3N, but there you go. On the whole, bone-in hamshanks are even more than just something Fawx thinks is fun to say =9
As we're discussing the holidays today, I'm hoping you could share your thoughts on using holiday gifting as a platform to give a well-meaning nudge in a new life direction? My adult daughter (now in her 30s) has been something of a disappointment in terms of her career development. Most other members of the family of her generation are extremely successful doctors, lawyers, executives, etc. She is a mid-level manager, and although she has a good income and clearly enjoys her job, she doesn't seem terribly ambitious. I am just worried she is coasting a bit and being somewhat lazy, selling herself short. Greater achievement is just expected in our family and it is frankly somewhat embarrassing to me. I've tried to discuss this with her numerous times, but she insists she is happy with her life as-is. Would it be horrible of me to offer the first year of law school tuition as a holiday gift to motivate her to do more with her life? Or should I assume the cause of her lack of motivation is something deeper, such as depression, and offer to pay for therapy/treatment?
A. Carolyn Hax :
I have two ways I can go with this. I can treat your question as a joke plant intended to get me all fired up, or I can treat it as if you're serious about this and have no idea that it's so judgmental and controlling that it verges on a parody of pushy parents.
I'm going to go with (b), just in case.
As a holiday gift to your daughter, love her for who she is, and get yourself some therapy, to help you find out why you need so badly for your offspring to fit some arbitrary definition of "success."
Aren't we in a recession? Mid-level manager is fucking good. Less stress than those other jobs, too, especially when lots of executives are under fire for being rich and greedy.
Anyway, I don't have a lot. I keep getting small reminders that I haven't done a lot and don't know much about how I should handle that--gad forbid I have ended up being the daughter in that Q and unemployed as I am. While I think it's interesting to learn some of everything, if my folks wanted me to go to law school, I would've told them to save their money [my folks aren't the type I would tell to shove it].
[[not that I think lawyers are scum like most people do, 'cause some of my friends went into law, but I just don't see myself as a She-Hulk]]
[[[or Naruhodou Ryuuichi, even]]]
This is discouraging, incidentally, but not exactly surprising. [Thankfully no one ever asks me. Just never seems relevant--imagine!]
[[Tl;dr: the URL says everything =p ]]
[[[I do have other links, but that's enough for one post]]]
Forgot to write up the last BGN, which was really UMVC3N, but there you go. On the whole, bone-in hamshanks are even more than just something Fawx thinks is fun to say =9