Do You Expect To Be More Successful Than Your Parents?

[SmoothieX]

Financially, we are already doing about as well as they were in their prime, and we are only in our late 20s and my wife is still a year or two away from finishing her post-doc. When she takes a faculty position, we will exceed that immediately.

The thing was my Dad never finished college. He stepped in a good pile and was making a little over $100k for several years doing techie IT computer stuff. When that crashed several years back, he got laid off and couldn't find another tech job because he was so specialized in one company's product line. My Mom finished college but has worked in a drug store the last 25 years. She squandered a potential career.

My wife and I both have graduate degrees and professional career type jobs. We've been doing much better than them the past few years. We have minimal debt and make more than we need each month and have been getting nice furniture and saving for a house.

Family wise, neither of us is interested in kids, so there isn't a comparison there. But marriage wise we have been together for 8 years and married for 2+. I think we have the same kind of stable, loving relationship they do, just obviously not as long as the 35 years they've been married.

Personally, we have different interests. Sounds silly to say I'm more successful at hiking than they are at fishing.

Healthwise though, we have them beat by a mile. They take terrible care of themselves. Eat poorly, no exercise, recreational drugs, bad about seeing the doctor, etc. I can't help but think my Dad might not have terminal cancer at this point if it were caught sooner. And my Mom is in her 60s and has never had a mammogram or gynecological exam. When it comes down to it, if you don't have your health, the rest is pretty pointless.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Yes and no.

Now that I think about it, your answer pretty much says it all for a lot of people. The lives of children are better in some ways compared to their parents' at that stage in their lives, though not necessarily more successful.

 

[Geckothan]

My parents both have talent but they haven't done anything with it. My dad had a degree in art and something in drama, and my mum used to play the flute but neither of them have done anything with their talents, whereas I intend to make a living from my musical talent in some way, even if I have to be a session player or a sound engineer. The chances are I won't be successful though because I don't have any ambitions beyond music, and it's difficult to make a living from music without luck, especially with the rise of cheap home recording techniques that let every other idiot create music, making it harder for people who actually have talent to get anywhere.

 

[RandyS]

Mom's dead and Dad's an idiot.

I'm already more successful.

 

[Mr. B]

Financially I might have a good shot. Me and my siblings will be the first in my Dad's family to graduate from college, although he has a successful small business without one. My parents have been happily married for over 25 years now and they could count the fights on one hand... that's gonna be a hard act to follow.

 

[Holdfast]

Bit of an odd question, at least to me, since much of my success is a function of their success & what they were then able to do for me, so it's hard to separate out cause & effect on this. For instance, without their financial muscle, I wouldn't have had the education I did, and without aspects of their personalities that made them successful, I wouldn't have had the upbringing I did. And without elements of that education & upbringing, I wouldn't have had the opportunities I've hard. So how much is actually MY success rather than a secondary function of theirs? I've never really tried to conceptually separate it out. I can't say it concerns me overly.

Still, when we're all shooting the breeze in the afterlife and it comes to totting up and comparing our "happiness quotients" over our entire lifetimes, I hope I'll be happier and more satisfied than they were. So I do hope/expect to be more successful that they were. But that would be true of what I would hope for myself compared to anyone else, not because they're my parents per se, and I don't think it can be answered until life is over.

Sorry, that's very jumbled, but I can't really answer this question particularly clearly.

 

[Mallory]

I'm like you. I attribute my career success to my Dad's work ethic. I've been married for 30 years, own my own home, put one kid through college, the second is a junior in college and my son graduates from high school next year. Overall I think I've done better than my parents, but that's a judgment call on my part.

 

[nevermore]

Well, that's complicated, isn't it? As far as my dad goes, I'd say I have him beat in the "pursuing one's bliss" department, but by most measuring sticks, probably not. He's run his own small business for 30 years, making him financially secure, but I really don't think he particularly enjoys the field or the work. He just ended up there after college because that's what his dad did. In that I consider myself more successful because I took the time I needed to find what I wanted to do.

My mother, on the other hand, will probably have me beat for a good long time. She pursued a career that she a) chose, b) loved and c) was extremely successful in. She was the top sportswear designer in the country for the majority of the 80's (remember velour sweatsuits? That was her. ), traveled extensively for her work and then retired early to live on a sailboat in the Caribbean for a decade, and now continues to travel a lot and paint. That's a pretty high bar to meet.

I figure I may end up with more education, if I get off my ass, though less directed than either of them, and a more interesting career path with greater impact potential, but that's all up in the air. Financially, if I remain in academia and/or the nonprofit sector, I'm unlikely to exceed them, but I don't care about that. The marriages and children thing doesn't factor into my estimation of success as they are not desired outcomes for me.

 

[Verteron]

I was the first person in my family to go to brick and mortar university (and I went to Cambridge), my Dad having got his degree in Mathematics at night school before becoming a teacher, which whilst being a very worthy profession does not pay all that well.

I was quite fortunate about 10 years ago during the early days of the dot-com bubble and although I didn't come out the other end as a millionaire (or anything near that), I did come out comfortable, and although I no-longer had a business thanks to the 'crash' the money I did walk away with allowed me to persue my academic studies further, in the shape of self-funding my doctorate.

Compared with my parents I'm more academically and financially successful - but I often figure that both of them have or had just as much potential as I did - circumstances just led to them not getting the same opportunities as me. Both come from quite impoverished working class families, and dragged themselves in to the middle class and raised me and my sibilings very decently - something for which I'll always be incredibly grateful.

I certainly feel like I've inherited a strong 'working class ethic' from them and this has certainly contributed to my own success through hard work.

 

[iguana_tonante]

She was the top sportswear designer in the country for the majority of the 80's (remember velour sweatsuits? That was her. )

A generation of Italian-Americans will you curse her name, you know that, yes?

 

[nevermore]

She was the top sportswear designer in the country for the majority of the 80's (remember velour sweatsuits? That was her. )

A generation of Italian-Americans will you curse her name, you know that, yes?

Get in line. Do you know how many velour sweatsuits I had growing up?

 

[Holdfast]

She was the top sportswear designer in the country for the majority of the 80's (remember velour sweatsuits? That was her. )

A generation of Italian-Americans will you curse her name, you know that, yes?

Get in line. Do you know how many velour sweatsuits I had growing up?

I'm guessing the answer is somewhere around the number required to reupholster the seats in your local cinema?

(seriously though, that's a pretty cool family story you got there. Well, I say "cool". Probably not the word I'm looking for. But you know what I mean! )

 

[Zulu Romeo]

At the moment, I don't know if I can answer this question properly either. If you could measure success in terms of assets, then yes I could see myself being more successful. If in terms of relationships and family, then I certainly hope I see some success that way. In terms of security and happiness, things lately have taken an awkward turn, and could swing either way depending on what happens next. But I would count those as being a major measure of how successful I am, and I do hope I can become more secure and happy than how my parents have been.

 

[auntiehill]

A happier life, perhaps. That remains to be seen, I suppose.

But financially, oh HELL no. My dad was a corporate attorney, so even with our combined salaries, hubby and I will never even come close to that. But we actually like each other, and try to spend time together, and try to divide up the housework, so we are already miles ahead of both our parents.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Will I ever financially be as successful as my parents? I do not believe so, unless I happen to marry a man who is making more than I likely ever will.

The thing is this: I know that at some point in my life, I am called to the ministry or some sort of full-time work in the church. How I know this is very personal, but it is a feeling I have not been able to shake since 15 or 16 years old. Much like teaching, that is NOT a vocation that pays very well. Whether or not I will be married by the time that point in my life arrives, I don't know--and if I am not married, then it's pretty much a given I will never make anywhere near the money that my parents do--ministry and nonprofit work does not pay well.

However, the knowledge that I am answering my calling will be worth more than money could ever buy.

 

[sidious618]

I'll be happier than them so yes.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

If I'm as financially successful as my Dad, it would be nothing to be ashamed of (although nothing to brag about on an internet forum). For accomplishments, it's also hard to say (I'd say he had a fairly distinguished career in his field, but it's a story of declining results as the industry isn't forgiving and he's had to change jobs a couple of times. Still, I'll go with what I said before, nothing to be ashamed of, not much to brag about).

For me, I think accomplishments (as far as a feeling of self-worth) and financial tend to be fairly contradictory in my hopeful field of work. There will only be rare cases where both meet. For me, I have no expectations, only hopes, so I can't say I expect to be more successful than my dad (I won't compare it to my mom who raised three kids, which is basically an apples to oranges comparison).

 

[Kira Nerys]

Neither of my parents have college degrees and something I strive for . I still trying to get a GED through the state which is taking longer that I hoped for .

 

[Mr Awe]

Monetarily I'm doing better, which is a little surprising but not a shock. More importantly, as a parent I'm doing better. I've taken what they did wrong and fixing it, so by definition I'm better!

I'm saying that only half-jokingly. They weren't bad parents at all but there are few areas of improvement that I've taken to heart.

I travelled a heck of a lot more than they have. Travel is important to me, but not so much to them.

Mr Awe