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To What Extent Should Parents Influence Their Children’s Choices
My dad wanted one of his kids to become a doctor. Until recently, I assumed my older sister Michelle was supposed to study medicine at the university but because the Diploma program didn’t include medicine, she studied accounting instead. She corrected me saying she was supposed to study pharmacy, not medicine. My dad never broached the subject of studying medicine to me because I hated biology from SS1 and loved further maths and chemistry so he knew I was always going to go the engineering route.
The first time I saw him express his desire for one of his children to study medicine was the day he toasted my brother. I think NEPA had taken light and we were seated around a slab fitted like a table in my compound when my dad began his toasting. My brother I believe was in senior secondary school at the time and was on holiday from the boarding house. There are two houses in my compound — the bigger one in the front where we live, and a smaller one at the back where a tenant lived.
My dad said to my brother that if he studied medicine, after graduation, he would only have to work for a few years before setting up his own hospital. The big house would be converted into a hospital for him while my parents would move to the smaller house at the back. My brother wasn’t interested in becoming a doctor and he…
