On career choices, stop confining children to miserable spaces

This weekend, three of my lifelong friends and I had a conversation which turned into a reflection. We had met for a random ‘catch up coffee’ but ended up with an unplanned for agenda item when I received a text from a close friend. She needed help with a writing placement for someone who had just completed her formal training in law.

“I need a favour. Could you link me up with a place where a young lawyer can learn to write and possibly turn that into a career…?” The message from Georgette read.

When I asked if the person in need had any writing portfolio, the response was that: “She just wants to start out, after graduating from Kenya School of Law.”

I was a little confused about why a fresh advocate would want to learn writing from scratch when my assumption was that at that point she’d be focused on practicing, or whatever it is lawyers call it.

“This is the typical story of studying what your parents want, and then having the confidence to follow your dreams after you give your parents their dream,” Georgette responded.

Enjoyed writing

This chat led my friends and I down memory lane – about how we have grown in the things we were passionate about when we were in school and the privilege of having parents who were contented enough to step back and allow us to chart our own paths in life.

Among the three of us, I enjoyed writing and telling stories, another was the unhinged ‘opposition leader’ in all debates at school, we also had the actress extraordinaire and of course, that chic for whom mathematics just made sense, enough sense to make it something she could spend her free time on! We agreed that the things we enjoy doing have not changed, we have just matured through them.

In each of our day jobs, there are strands of these passion components. Today, this clique is made up of a journalist, a lawyer, a statistician and…the odd one, a biochemist. I don’t know much about being a chemist, but that is what our friend Joan is up to these days, and she seems happy.

“Now that I think about it, I didn’t have anything specific about where I wanted to end up in terms of career. I just lived a day at a time and here we are, today!” one of us said. We agreed; there was no grand guarantee or revelation about what we would be. We also recognised that we are extremely privileged to be walking in life, in step with the things we have always enjoyed doing.

Telling stories

But it is not always that simple or even easy. Not many parents will be delighted if their university-going child tells them: “I am not really sure what I want to become but all I know is I love asking questions.” I think as human beings, we are wired to want to have something definite to look forward to. The semblance of having ‘a guarantee’ gives comfort.

So, I imagine parents feel more peaceful when they can squarely put a finger on what their son or daughter is going to be. It must feel safe to know your daughter will be a doctor, or son will be an engineer…that is solid enough. Unfortunately, that kind of definable rock-solid future is not always possible, especially in the world we live in today.

The job I do today, which I love passionately, did not exist when I was registering for or even doing my undergraduate degree. The only thing I knew was that I enjoyed writing and telling stories. I was always determined to become a writer. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a novel writer, a newspaper writer, or if I wanted to write movie scripts. Writing was just this powerful thing I wanted to do.

It must’ve been the intoxicating pride I felt each time my teacher of English posted my composition on the class noticeboard when I was in primary school. Or maybe the simple joys that came with creating new characters, giving them names and attributes. Whatever it was, right after high school, I set up a blog. And I got to discover different shapes and forms that writing can take, in short, just how versatile writing can be, especially with the daily innovations in the profession today.

What advice did my friends and I have for the advocate who wants to become a writer? Unfortunately, we couldn’t think of anything apart from giving recommendations for writing labs we know, and just feeling really sad. Sad because of how common this phenomenon is – of guys spending four, five or even six years taking university courses they have no intention of practicing.

I have sort of given up on the last generation of parents to understand this issue, but I hope my generation, when we have children or those who already have children, will do better than confining children in miserable spaces because of premature foreclosures.

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