My college student daughter recently asked me if I knew what she should do after she graduates. Her original plan to go to law school is being reexamined. The word is out that this career choice is not necessarily viable any longer with a glut of law graduates and very few jobs for them. Outsourcing of this type of work is as prevalent as call centers, apparently. Who of us has made a call to a customer service center of any kind lately and spoken to someone in the 50 United States? Not many, I would imagine.
So what will our children do? How will they earn a living? What do they need to be studying to be ready for the jobs of tomorrow? What will the jobs be? Who really knows? What we do know is that we are not properly preparing our children to be ready for tomorrow’s work force and for the future. Our education systems are largely stuck in the past and the preparedness is geared to yesterday’s possibilities. The curriculums are based on a past economy that no longer exists or is fading fast.
What’s a parent to do? What are the teachers to do? Who will provide the leadership and the new ideas, and when? We need to be asking these questions. Every parent needs to be asking and prodding the politicians, the corporate leaders and the educators so our children don’t come up empty-handed in the future; unprepared and unable to find security and fulfillment in their lives. Right now other governments are paying our universities to educate thousands of their children. They are getting the credentials and the training and then taking that expertise back home with them. Where is the investment for our kids? They will be competing against those same youngsters for jobs as the work force continues to go global.
The certainty of future joblessness for those without higher or specialized education would appear to be a given. As parents, this means it is our responsibility to make sure our children, from an early age, develop the kind of focus necessary to achieve, grow, and be competitive and adaptable as the new vocations unfold. We must steer them into places we can’t even see clearly ourselves — the unknown. This is an enormously important responsibility. This is pioneering. This is our century’s “wagon train.”
As we move into the New Year and the years ahead we will need to partner with each other more than we ever have before. Our children’s futures will depend on it.
New York Parenting Media wishes your families happy holidays. My personal thanks go out to all our staff for their fine work, and especially to “our parents,” Sharon, Tina and Lori, whose presence continues to make it all worthwhile.
Thanks for reading!
