We need to let our children choose their own path in life

"Dad, as soon as I get old enough, I'm going to quit school and work at McDonald's." These are words to strike terror into the heart of any parent.

Not that I have anything against working at McDonald's because that's how I put myself through college. But my daughter had not even finished high school. I decided I'd better calm down a bit before I replied.

Eventually I was able to empathize with her struggle with school and her desire to do something she thought would be more enjoyable. In retrospect, I guess I actually dealt with my daughter's alarming pronouncement fairly well. Of course, it probably was easier for me that she was only 7 at the time.

I share the above not only because it reminds me of just how anxious we parents can get, but also because it illustrates a challenge that most parents eventually will face. Sooner or later, our adolescent or young adult children will be making such choices. And it is quite possible they will be choices we don't welcome.

I think most of us were raised with the expectation that we would do "better" than our parents educationally, vocationally and economically. If they finished high school, we would go to college. If they worked the assembly line, we'd be the manager. If they had a two-bedroom bungalow and an old Ford, we'd have a new house in the suburbs and a Mercedes.

As parents ourselves now, we have often faced the reality that our lives are not always that much different from our parents'. That doesn't stop us from passing on the same expectations to our own children that they will do better.

Now, better usually is defined as more education, a more prestigious job, more money. And, as is the American way, we assume more just automatically translates into happiness and fulfillment.

I'm not so sure about that anymore.

My grandfather barely finished eighth grade. He worked in a steel mill for 40 years, sometimes 14 hours a day, seven days a week. During the Depression, there was often barely enough money for both coal to heat the house and food for the table.

My parents certainly did better. We had plenty to eat, a comfortable home, little sense of struggle in our lives.

And I guess I've done better still. My life is certainly more comfortable than my grandfather's. It is probably easier than my parents' life. And I suspect it is easier for me to find happiness and fulfillment simply because I don't have to struggle as hard to just survive.

But all that doing better doesn't guarantee I'll actually find such happiness and fulfillment. I think that has more to do with my own inner sense of what is worthwhile in myself and in my life in general. That is something I learned the hard way as I grew up and made my own decisions, good and bad.

That brings us back to our children. Each of them will eventually have to find their own path in life, their own sources of happiness and fulfillment. In the process they may choose lives that are very different from those we would choose for them.

Now, I'm not implying that we parents have no role in our children's choices of educational, vocational or economic goals. In fact, we can play a very negative or a very positive part in this process.

If we attempt to push our children into the path we have chosen for them, we risk doing a good deal of damage. We set ourselves up as authorities against whom our children need to rebel if they are to claim their own power to choose. That not only guarantees we will not be heard, but risks our children making some very bad decisions to defy us. But if our children give in to our authority, then we have undercut their ability to eventually make their own adult decisions.

There is an alternative. If we see ourselves as sort of senior consultants whose job is to be available to our children when they want to discuss issues of education and vocation, we will probably find that they both seek us out more and sometimes listen to us.

That doesn't mean they'll do what we want them to do. Even when they don't, though, it is still our job to affirm their autonomy and be supportive.

So far my daughter, now 16, has announced she will both drop out of school and finish graduate school. She has expressed interest in careers as an author, social worker, diplomat and guru.

I'm managing to take all this in stride. I know, though, that the day will come when she will be quite serious about such decisions. I hope then I'll have the wisdom to support her goals, whether they fit my expectations for her or not.

This parenting business can be tough at times.

• The Rev. Ken Potts is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist with Samaritan Interfaith Counseling Centers, Naperville and Downers Grove. His book, "Take One A Day," can be ordered at local bookstores or online.