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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would like to point out that pursuing a career in the performing arts does not mean you have to bypass college.

Lupita N'yongo is an A-list actress. She graduated from Yale. Charlie Puth is a successful pop musician and he graduated from the Berklee College of Music.

Pursuing a career in music or film/TV doesn't mean you can't do college. And college can be a useful stepping stone as in the two examples I just shared.

Teens have very limited, narrow mindsets about the path to success and what it looks like.[/quote]

Yes, but it’s also true that college is by no means necessary and if a teenager says that, it doesn’t mean they have a limited, narrow mindset about the path to success.[/quote]

College is not necessary for success in life. True. But people who have college degrees have higher odds and rates of successful outcomes. Not being able to recognize that and insisting that the only way to be successful is by avoiding or dropping out of college is a limited viewpoint. For every success story, there are countless people who dropped out or bypassed college and are barely scraping by. We have to stop romanticizing this pathway. It leaves behind a lot of damaged, broken and failed people.[/quote]

For rock music in particular, I’m not convinced that’s true. If you can prove otherwise, please link to it.

We’re not talking about life in general here. We’re talking about rock music for a kid OBSESSED with it, like OP’s son. [/quote]

I was obsessed with anime when I was a teen. I taught myself how to draw my favorite anime characters. I'm glad my parents didn't take my adolescent interests and assume that they had to be lifelong passions.

At one point, I also said I wanted to be a marine biologist. Today, I have zero interest in anything like working with animals full-time.

You do realize how bad teenagers are at knowing who they are and what they want, right? That's why so many of them change majors multiple times in college. If you treat teens like they are adults, you can enable some pretty poorly thought out decisions that they will regret and then later blame you for.[/quote]

Please stop minimizing the work and commitment associated with playing an instrument well. It is not the same as spending time as a teenager drawing your favorite anime character on any level. You wouldn't say that if the kid had been playing violin since he was 6. You're just saying it now because you don't think that THIS kind of music is worth investing in.

Teenagers are not actually terrible at knowing what they want. They are learning what they want. They are developing interests. It makes sense that some of those interests would die on the vine, like your love of anime. It also makes sense that some personal interests would never turn into career interests. It is pretty shortsighted to have a blanket assumption that you should not take seriously the interests of teenagers because you don't share them.[/quote]

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