Whose Horizon?

Joseph Schooling's remarkable feat which gave Singapore its first Olympic gold medal must have stirred many a Singaporean parent into some sort of reflection on their own parenting style. Apart from juggling with the financial commitment of over a million US dollar and the sacrifices in family life, the thing most admirable about Schooling's parents is the trust in their son's dream. It is not uncommon for parents to dismiss their children's ambition calling it far fetched or impractical. Most parents consider good careers as those that guarantee good income with little risk.  How many parents will in the first place believe a 13 year old son's conviction of winning an Olympic gold medal and not dismiss it as a pipe dream? Even so how many will risk such a heavy financial investment?

We aspire for our children to have a comfortable adult life and find ourselves in a great dilemma when our child declares that he/she wants to be an artist, sportsman or some non mainstream career. I know of many a parent who is willing to finance a child's education only if he/she pursues something "worthwhile". I have always wonder which set of parents are wiser, this aforementioned parents (which I will call type 1 parents) or another type of parents (type 2 parents) who just let their children pursue their own interest even if it offers little career prospects. To me type 1 parents are using their own perception of what constitutes a good life whilst type 2 parents may have failed in parenting by not giving proper career guidance.

I remember reading an article about one parent toying with the idea of giving a cash lump sum to an adult son for him to gain immediate financial freedom. The son was contemplating switching into a socially meaningful career but which will not support a livelihood.

Now my son is currently saving up every cent of his salary to fulfill an ambition to pursue post graduate studies in a field of humanities which colleges round the world are seeing a declining interest. Even contemplating an academic career is dicey as many universities are closing their thinly enrolled humanity programs. This is also partly due to lack of external funding as college education is increasingly viewed as vocational training.

So now I am wavering on a line held by the 2 set of parents whom I described earlier though the remarks made by Joseph Schooling's parents about trusting in your child's dream has moved me a notch nearer type 2 parenting.

As someone once said "You don't limit your child's horizons because of your own horizons"