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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a teacher, it is difficult to hear that this is how you see us. I won’t make this reply about that though.

I would not encourage my kids to go into teaching. Not because I think it is settling or selling themselves short in any way because I don’t believe those things about teachers. I wouldn’t encourage it because the pay is not enough to support them or a family if they were to be without a partner.

If any of my kids told me they wanted to be a teacher, I would be proud of them for wanting to do meaningful work that leaves the world a better place. But I’d also encourage them to find a way to do that while earning a better income. 
[/quote]

+ 1

My mom was a teacher and a pretty amazing one. She preferred to work in low income/high immigrant communities and dedicated her time and money to giving the best possible to her students. Parents raved about her and her students always had significant improvements in test scores. But when my niece said she wanted to be a teacher, my mom talked her out of it. She explained the job was high stress, undervalued and very underpaid. She wanted more financial stability for her granddaughter. Ultimately, my niece, who is great with kids, went into nursing and plans to work in the NICU or PICU with kids. It’s still high stress but she will be able to support herself well even without a partner. [/quote]

Our high-achieving DC always wanted to be a teacher....and has been talked out of it by their esteemed teachers. And I mean that sincerely. We've been greatly blessed with an extraordinary number of extraordinary teachers. But every. single. one. has said -- don't do it.

So the pivot is to nursing, for now -- even though several close friends and family members who are nurses have likewise tried to dissuade our child. The plan is to double major in nursing and music therapy or (gasp) music education.

Strikingly, little of the advice has been because of money. It's all about the working conditions -- the hours, the stress, the heartache, the paperwork(!). Both sets acknowledge, however, there will always be a need for teachers [i]and[/i] nurses.

It will not surprise us if, five years post BSN, our DC will be in a school. Somewhere. In the clinic, band room, or classroom. With us as their biggest cheerleaders!

OP, please try to find a way to embrace your child's path. There's nothing wrong with pointing out the potential pitfalls along the way but your issue seems more about whether the profession is [i]good enough[/i] for your child. That's a different matter altogether.[/quote]

[b]The problem is that people in a profession often have little perspective of what other jobs are like.[/b] I've also heard many doctors and lawyers try to dissuade kids from pursuing those careers, and for similar reasons-- stress, bad employers, paperwork. Plus the high cost of the education required.

Education, by comparison, has low barriers to entry. A teaching certification takes significantly less time and money to acquire than many other professionals degrees. This makes it lower risk-- try it, if you hate it, pivot to something else. If you love it, get a master's to max out your earning. The flexibility of this path is appealing, IMO.

As for prestige... It's overrated. I'm a mid career lawyer and the prestige of a career gets undercut by your experience within it. My job sounds prestigious to outsiders and I do make a decent income. But the reality is that I'm not treated that well by my employer or my clients, I have low job satisfaction, and I only recently started seeing real financial returns on the investment in my education, because of the time it took me to pay off law school and then build up savings. And my hours are long and the job is high stress. The fact that some people are impressed that I'm a lawyer is not really worth that much to me at this point.[/quote]

+1
My sister is a doctor and complains all the time. But what she tells me doesn't sound any worse than a gazillion meaningless office jobs with mediocre pay.[/quote]

+2[/quote]

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