The Links between Families and Occupations - Essay Example

Academia - Research December 2009 Observation and Imitation: The links between Families and Occupations It is not unusual to hear of a ‘family of doctors’ or a ‘family of chefs’. Occupations and careers do tend to follow the branches of family-trees. In this piece, the intention is to show how an imaginary family, similar to mine, adapted and constructed their careers around influences and pressures (both positive and negative) that existed inside the family. Some influences and pressures in families are only temporary, and other persist for generations. Some children take their families very seriously, and as we shall see, other ignore a lot of what goes on. I have heard elders in my family say that very often, they have seen some children that easily take on the culture, attitudes, ambition and desires of their parents and grandparents, whereas other children have trouble assimilating to these things and rebel. With this in mind, I have observed how members of my family look at jobs, careers and occupations, and find that what I heard is true. For example, my sister has taken on the attitudes and desires of my parents, and I have rebelled. The following occupational family tree shows three generations of my family, and how some of us have kept up traditions, and other abandoned them. Trying to determine whether gender plays a part is difficult, because some young men have upheld tradition, while young women went against the grain, and the reverse is also true. Changes in levels of education with the passing of generations has a lot to do with why some children change track. (Ballantine and Roberts, 2008 ) In this notional occupational tree, I am Mary Wang. I obtained my biology degree almost against my family’s wishes, but I was determined to be as unlike my father, Arthur, and my brother (Fred) and sister (Pauline) as I could. My grandparents came from larger families than ours. My grandmother May Ng-Le, for example, was one of five children, all girls. They all married tradesmen like shoemakers (but some of them worked in factories) because that is what they knew. They had the culture and attitudes of their forebears, who were immigrants. Although my grandmother had a good education, Grandpa Harry insisted she stayed at home to look after Mom and her two brothers like his Mom did. Grandma May remembered how hard her mother worked in their laundry, and how often she had to prepare family meals and help with the young ones because Great-Grandma Sue was always so tired. However, all that hard work meant they made quite a lot of money and became prosperous, and their children had a good education. Grandma May’s brothers both had their own businesses: another laundry, and a corner store and delicatessen. On my father’s side, both grandparents had good educations because their families worked hard too, and sent their kids to good colleges. Grampa Francis did not want to be a vegetable wholesaler, like his dad wanted him to be. There are family stories of big fights when he said he wanted to join the police force. It had nothing to do with vegetables, and little to do with what he studied at school, which made all the family mad and disappointed. But he wanted to do something useful in society, right up to the day he died. He said it was his parents themselves who brought him up with a social conscience, wanting to give something back. My dad and brother think they are keeping a family tradition: I think they are still making one that Grampa started. There were no policemen in the family until Grampa rebelled. Traditions are established over time, depending on experiences, and lessons from parents and teachers, becoming consciously accepted patterns. (Ballantine and Roberts, 2008) I did not want to join the police force or become a teacher like Mom. Now she did not rebel, although her parents were very strict and traditional. (Dad’s Mom was a teacher too, so there was pressure from him to go to teachers’ college.) My Mom listened to her parents when they told her they wanted her to have a career that was better than theirs: something to do with books or education, because the shoemaking business was hard work and had less status. They worked very hard to send Mom to college, and she did very well. Respect, observing of traditions and high motivation to please parents is very important in families like mine. (Ballantine and Roberts Ibid). My grandparents still have memories of immigrant traditions and still mention ‘the old country’ although they have never been there. Their cooking, observances of holidays and child-raising are still couched in tradition, although compared to other Asian families that came here more recently, they are totally American. Family finances have had a lot to do with careers in our family. Affording a good education has meant that my siblings and I have careers rather than simple opportunistic jobs. Dad insisted on this because his Dad insisted on it for him. Family economy determines how the children are educated, what status they have and how they educate their children in turn. In my kind of family, a college degree can also mean the difference between marrying someone with a profession or someone in a lucrative business, or not, because Grandma May always says you can only marry who you meet. She met and fell in love with Grandpa Harry the year she finished high school, but her Mom’s marriage was arranged. Even though family traditions and culture changes and shifts with generations, it is easy to see how everyone in my family tree has sought out other Chinese or Vietnamese spouses. This is not left to chance: both families on Mom’s and Dad’s side have a strong sense of tradition where marriage is concerned, and although they both do not disapprove of mixed marriages, somehow everyone in my line (except two of Dad’s cousins who married white Americans, and Grandma May’s sister who is a missionary nun in India) married Asian people. Although I’m working my first job in a epidemiology laboratory, and make a good wage, I am not yet thinking of forming a permanent relationship because I am a bit anxious of what my Mom would say if I took a white boy home. Breaking with tradition is not my main motivation, but neither do I want to carry on in the same old way, either. When my great-grandfather Hui Wang started his market garden up-state just after World War II, he spoke hardly any English, felt like an out-cast and still wore traditional clothes and hat. The stories Dad tells us are very vivid: he heard them from his Dad. I suppose I will tell them to my children one day. But I wonder what they will make of the stories, the culture, the traditions and the family ways we feel are part of us. My children too will either conform or rebel. Even though I will pass on the stories, it is non-material culture. (Ballantine and Roberts Ibid) My brother has children who will get good college degrees and go on to make their own choices, just like I have done. They might not want to stay with the police force. Fred is a good detective, but it is neither an easy nor a very safe job. He has to carry a weapon, a thought I find uncomfortable. Although our careers are different, and children tend to make choices from a sense of duty, a sense of rebellion or a plain materialistic sense (of doing better than the generation before financially) (Ballantine and Roberts Ibid), our family’s norms and values are very similar. They have adapted to American ways along the generations, but the shifts are peculiar to us in many ways. We have special ways of relating to each other, and special ways of child-rearing which in many ways will remain unchanged, and will influence what occupations we choose for the next few generations. Source cited Ballantine, Jeanne H and Roberts, Keith A (Eds) 2008 Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology Pine Forge Press Read More