November 2005

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Early today I answered a question on a message board about what my parents did and how or if that influenced my choices regarding education and work. I've written about my parents in various entries over the years, but I don't think I've addressed the question of how their career choices influenced mine before, so I thought you might also like to read it. This is a very slightly edited version.

My father was an attorney, with a general practice. He was also pretty active in church and in other non-profit organizations. Although I have some wonderful memories of him, he died a week before my fourth birthday, which means that his influence on my future was filtered through people who knew him more than being a direct one.

My mother was a teacher, of Latin and Spanish on a high school level. She had started her working life as the secretary to my father's uncle, who was also an attorney (that's how they met), since North Carolina public schools weren't hiring many new graduates in 1932 when she finished college.

Both parents were in the Army during World War II. Mother found a teaching job when she got out, and Daddy resumed his practice. They married a few years later, 19 years after they met.

During her early teaching years she spent her summers getting a Master's, which included one summer studying in Mexico. After she and Daddy married, she wound up teaching Eighth Grade (all courses) for some years, until the Latin teacher retired and the school added Spanish classes.

Mother preached against me being a teacher, because of the administrative crap she had to put up with during her working years. She didn't have to preach too hard; I don't really have the talent to teach, at least not in a classroom setting. She always hoped I'd wind up being a lawyer, but I don't really have the patience for that. Mainly she influenced me to find work I could love.

I always knew I'd go to college, and had thought about graduate school, too. By the time I was through college, though, I decided I'd had it up to my eyebrows with school and wanted to work. I haven't regretted that.

I've used my psychology degree in all three jobs I've had since then, in office administration roles at two non-profit organizations and a law firm (yes, I do see the family influence). I use it in my freelance work, too. Also in my freelance work I try to do some of the artistic things that are my passion, except music, which I tend to do in volunteer roles, deliberately, so that it can't turn into drudgery.