For a long time, I harbored a silent resentment towards my parents for the way they treated my creative dreams.
It wasn't a loud, dramatic grief that ends up in therapy and needs to be named. It was more of a quiet humming in the background of my ambitions. A recurring thought that whispered, “They didn't believe in me.”
They knew how much I loved writing. They saw the notebooks I filled, the essays I returned with enthusiastic comments from teachers, and the stories I started but rarely finished. Their reaction was basically: that's cute, but what's your real plan?
“Go for a master’s degree in early childhood education,” they advised. “You'll be able to teach. Better yet, study law so you'll be well-paid and respected.”
They didn't see a writing-based career for me, so they looked away from it. I held it against them for a long time – until I became a parent myself.
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When my child went off to college, my feelings became complicated
Decades later, I sent my firstborn to an expensive liberal arts college to study film studies — and that old regret became more complex.
For almost two decades, I have consciously invested in my child's development. There were Mandarin immersion programs, piano lessons and summer workbooks, always a grade ahead – all to nurture his unique sense of identity. I wanted him to know that his interests were important. I wanted it to feel that it could and should follow what ignites it. I said it straight and believed every word.
But now I'm sitting with college bills next to economic reports about millions of jobs disappearing and daily alerts about AI taking over new areas.
I finally understand what my parents were thinking when I left for college in 1999.
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My parents just counted the facts
They weren't dream killers, just a bit like time travelers. They stood in my present, looked into my future and made calculations that I – too young and full of hope – could not do. Now I'm doing the math myself, only the numbers are scarier and the variables are multiplying in ways none of us could have predicted.
It's not just about the labor market anymore. It is about the massive reconstruction of creative industries by artificial intelligence. I think of my child studying film while writers' rooms empty, entry-level editing jobs disappear, and graphic designers, photographers, and copywriters quietly lose importance to tools that work for free and never sleep.
The field in which my child pours all his passion is changing before our eyes faster than curricula can keep up. I'm starting to wonder: Are professors teaching an industry that exists now or one that's gone? Are 2026's film classes preparing my child for the future or elegantly conserving the past?
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My father graduated from college before his profession was created
I think of my father, who earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1971. The computer systems he later managed throughout his professional life did not yet exist. He studied for a future he could not fully see.
I was studying English and History – majors that seemed equally impractical on paper – until social media changed the game and gave someone with a talent for language a completely new career path. Neither of us could simply “learn” what we eventually became.
I don't have a simple answer. I'm learning all the time that good parenting in times of radical uncertainty can consist in refusing to pass on your fears to your children like a family legacy. This lesson is costing me more energy than I have. This is another burden in an already demanding period of life, where caring for others, careers and the need to constantly reinvent oneself all compete for the same, dwindling resources.
So I meditate, do breathing exercises, take sound baths, and pray. I pray that my child will create something that I cannot yet imagine — just like my father built systems that weren't in his textbooks, and just like I built a business on platforms that weren't created until after I graduated.
I pray that the instinct to stand up for yourself and respond to a deep, inner calling will be the one thing that no algorithm can replicate.
The above text is a translation from American edition of Business Insider
