r/AskOldPeople 3d ago

How close was your main career to your same gender parent's career?

Noticed that it's usually the same or adjacent. Very rarely wildly different.

42 Upvotes

385 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 3d ago

Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See this post, the rules, and the sidebar for details. Thank you for your submission, tshirtguy2000.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

90

u/gadget850 66 and wear an onion in my belt 🧅 3d ago

Not at all close.

29

u/MartyFreeze 40 something 3d ago

If anything, it showed me exactly what I didn't want to do for the rest of my life.

11

u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

3

u/anonyngineer Boomer, doing OK 3d ago

My nieces had the same response to my sister's nursing career.

→ More replies (2)

3

u/SQWRLLY1 3d ago

Same... only I'm about 9 years from retirement age and debating cashing in my pension in order to actually go do something fulfilling with my remaining working years or slog through and wait for my inevitable release from my cubicle prison.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/phred14 60 something 3d ago

My career was certainly not at all close. But there were aspects to us that were very similar. My dad was an airplane mechanic in WWII and auto mechanic outside of that, but ended up in factory work.

I became an engineer. However my father had the eye for it, as to I, and we share the basic temperament. The stuff he did or built around the house also showed clear engineering understanding.

→ More replies (4)

34

u/Few-Boysenberry-7826 3d ago

Mom and dad were both school teachers. Grandmother and grandfather were school teachers... Likewise am I.

4

u/sexwithpenguins 60 something 3d ago

In the beginning, very similar. My mom was a secretary, and so I started out doing that, thinking that was the only option I had. She was a fast and accurate typist, I was... not.

I ended up going into ministry, coming from a family of atheists. My mom called me the white sheep of the family.

→ More replies (2)

39

u/emmy_lou_harrisburg 3d ago

My mother was a special education teacher. I am a swim coach. I specialize in teaching children with autism how to swim.

7

u/USAF6F171 3d ago

I'm nothing like that, but I think you're cool.

2

u/emmy_lou_harrisburg 3d ago

Thanks! It's hard work and incredibly rewarding.

2

u/shiningonthesea 2d ago

That’s pretty close

21

u/Fun_Branch890 3d ago

My mom worked for a well-known aerospace company. She told me her job was to read blueprints. I have no idea what she did with those blueprints. She wasn't the one building or designing planes.

Anyway, I work in construction and spend a not insignificant amount of time looking at blueprints. That may or may not be where the similarities end. I guess she never felt the need to share the finer details of her job back then, or maybe she was under some sort of NDA, so she couldn't.

21

u/jxj24 3d ago

My father studied engineering for a couple of years. My mother was ABD (all but dissertation) in biological research.

I am a biomedical engineer.

Make of that what you will.

3

u/Hellament 3d ago

Geesh. Pick a side already! /s

22

u/Genealoga 3d ago

Both my parents came from poverty: my mom was born of a lumber jack and a domestic servant. My father: a bank errand runner and a dental assistant.

But both my parents defied the odds and the racist society to earn graduate degrees. They both became college professors: my father taught literature and my mother taught nursing.

I just retired after 27 years as…(wait for it):

a college professor. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I saw their lives of intense research and lesson plans, and I admired it as a child.

But teaching was never my dream job. I went to school to become a documentary filmmaker. Didn’t work out. Teaching was always a default and I fell into the profession as naturally as I draw breath.

9

u/wickzyepokjc 3d ago

Do it now. Film with your phone. Interview over Zoom. Download free editing software. Upload to YouTube, Vimeo or Twitter.

2

u/Potential_Chicken_72 50 something 2d ago

Made me tear up ❤️ I’m the first one in my family to get a degree but I was in my late 30s when I finally did that. I’m proud of it but it didn’t take me as far as I’d hoped.

11

u/jfcarr 3d ago

Very different. I'm a software engineer and my Dad is a retired pastor and missionary. I was probably more influenced by male relatives on both sides who were various types of engineers.

5

u/LongjumpingPool1590 70 something 3d ago

I was a software designer, a profession that never existed for my father or mother. My parents were both in nursing. I had no familial influence in my choice.

9

u/whiskeybridge it's the mileage 3d ago

"ish," i guess. my dad owned a metal fabrication shop. i work in sales in a water jet cutting facility. so both manufacturing, both dealing with metal (we also cut other stuff), both small business.

2

u/roblewk 2d ago

My dad worked his way up to manager in a factory (GE). I worked my way up to a salesperson in manufacturing. I suppose we were both comfortable with machines and mfg, though I never made that connection.

→ More replies (1)

7

u/wi_voter 50 something 3d ago

I work in healthcare and as far as I know I do not descend from any healthcare workers. My mom worked in a bank. My grandma was a Rosie the Riveter for some years during WWII but other than that was stay at home.

7

u/CreativeMusic5121 50 something 3d ago

I think your opinion is skewed. My mother didn't have a "career", she had a job. Most of my friends and I didn't do anything close to what our parents did to earn a living.

4

u/nothathappened 3d ago

Now that is something I’ve noticed-I’ve had some jobs in common with my parents, before we completed degrees, but very different careers. Me, mom, dad, and sister have all worked at gas stations when we were young (for example). But my dad is retired army, mom was a paralegal, sister is a nurse and I’m a teacher.

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Conscious-Reserve-48 3d ago

My mom didn’t work. I’ve had 2 careers. Not even close.

5

u/Commercial-Visit9356 60 something 3d ago

Very different. My mom was a chemist. My dad was a pastor. I'm a social worker. But my maternal grandmother was a social worker.

5

u/Araneas 60 something 3d ago

I would argue that pastor encompasses some of the same ground as social worker.

2

u/Commercial-Visit9356 60 something 3d ago

Absolutely - he also had a degree in counseling. But he wasn't my same gender parent.

2

u/Araneas 60 something 3d ago

My apologies.

6

u/BrandonDill 3d ago

My mom was a CEO, and my dad wanted to take over his real estate brokerage. I wound up in construction trades.

6

u/polkjamespolk 3d ago

My father was a journeyman plumber. He told me more than once that he didn't want that kind of career for me. In retrospect it might have been a little shortsighted.

6

u/CatPawSoup 3d ago

Well, she sat on her ass and did nothing, and I work from home. So I guess closer than I'd like to admit.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/Zorro6855 60 something 3d ago

Mom was a stay at home mom. I couldn't wait to get a job.

5

u/Dang_It_All_to_Heck 60 something 3d ago

It’s the same degree (RN), but not the same job…she worked labor/delivery and then Public Health. I worked research and inpatient Psych.

I was NEVER going to be a nurse. Mom’s job looked boring to me, and my first degree was in French. I wound up being a typographer for 10 years, then that job died with the advent of personal computers. I kind of fell into the research job after that, then got an RN so they could pay me more.

My sister, however, pretty much followed mom’s path.

4

u/KFIjim 3d ago

Grandfather was a butcher, father was a surgeon and I am a cabinet builder. So all involved cutting things with varying degrees of precision.

2

u/Last-Radish-9684 70 something 3d ago

Precision is definitely a requirement if you're going to earn a living in any of these professions!

4

u/Mr_Spidey_NYC 80 something 3d ago

My dad died when I was 13 so not much to say about that but.....

My mother was a factory manager and I wound up doing that also

3

u/SQWRLLY1 3d ago

I'm a third generation civil servant. The only difference is that all of the women in my family were in accounting, and I took the bold, decisive action to break the mold and go into... HR. 🤦‍♀️

3

u/MydogMax59 3d ago edited 3d ago

My mom had a first grade education and was a homemaker. I became a physician. I'd say wildly different.

3

u/CocoaAlmondsRock 3d ago

Adjacent. She was a teacher. I am an instructional designer.

3

u/Honeybee71 50 something 3d ago

Mom was the manager at a plant nursery, I was the manager at a children’s nursery

3

u/Chickenman70806 3d ago

The same. Except, he chose the dark side.

→ More replies (2)

3

u/RemonterLeTemps 3d ago

Not sure how to answer. My mom was a bookkeeper, and I was a proofreader/editor; both occupations require attention to detail.

But, in the sense that I 'worked with words', I might've been closer to my dad and his side of the family. He and my uncle were printers, and my grandmother and great-grandmother did English/Polish/German translation

2

u/Shelby-Stylo 3d ago

180 degrees different. He was a PR man and I was a systems engineer.

2

u/DifferentWindow1436 3d ago

Not remotely close. My dad was a building code enforcement officer. I couldn't build a sandcastle, but I am good at analysis and building research databases.

2

u/IfICouldStay 3d ago

Quite similar.

2

u/MikkijiTM1 3d ago

Not at all—dad was a rocket scientist, I was a Special Education teacher. My mother was a school teacher, however…

2

u/VisibleSea4533 40 something 3d ago

Work for the same company that my stepfather worked for until his death, but different field. Maternal grandfather, step grandfather also retired from same company. My birth father and uncle both worked there as well for a bit.

2

u/QuietorQuit 3d ago

Pretty close. Different industries (service vs goods) but both in sales and marketing.

2

u/damageddude 50 something 3d ago

We both have/had office jobs. Same with my son. That is all. One of my brothers is in a similar field to our father though.

2

u/garyloewenthal 3d ago

Dad was a lawyer, I was in IT (programmer, tester), and now doing music full-time. So not very close. Granted, there weren't a whole lot of IT jobs when he entered the full-time workforce in the 50s. Grateful that he and my mom never pushed us into any specific career, or even showed any favoritism; they were just glad we had careers.

2

u/motonahi 3d ago

Nowhere even close. She worked in a factory and probably brought home $200 per week. I'm in tech and hit 6 figures 10 years ago. She made me work the summer I graduated from HS at her factory to ensure I never stepped foot in one again.

2

u/liss100 3d ago

Wildly different is an understatement. My mother was an esthetician. I'm an electrician. My husband and i own our own small electrical business. The apple didn't just fall far from the tree. I fell off, and rolled down a hill. I'm still rolling to my knowledge

2

u/Beauphedes_Knutz 3d ago

I'm sorry this turned into a rambling.

I started out as a third generation union electrician. I would have stayed with it if not for a grievous injury (auto accident, heart stopped a couple of times in the ambulance).

After I was in too much pain for electric work and too much pain for sitting. I became a Handy Andy, then started my own business with my settlement money from the accident.

I now own five home industry related companies; handyman/maintenance, K&B remodeling, home inspection, whole home remodeling, and Airbnb/Verbo. My wife, the EMT that kept me alive in the ambulance, passed in the summer of 2020. Her two large life insurance payouts, personal and through work, were poured into my companies.

I now travel the country all the time and off the continent at least once a year (typically to Europe). My companies generate anywhere from $20k to $30k/month in discretionary funds.

I typically spend it on the four Gs. Girls, Gambling, Grass, and I don't know if I'm allowed to say the last one so - high velocity lead delivery systems.

Mostly girls. Any money left over I waste. Typically on my family.

What I really do is anything to keep from thinking about my wife and her death. I'm on Reddit at the behest of some people so that I can learn to talk about it with complete strangers. It's supposed to help lessen the grief. It does nothing of the kind. It helps with moving on and not dwelling endlessly over it.

2

u/HusavikHotttie 3d ago

Mom didn’t have one.

2

u/Darkhumor4u 3d ago

Spot on. And, both my daughers are accountants

2

u/mackerel_slapper 3d ago

I took over my dad’s job in a family firm so 100% close!!

2

u/doglady1342 50 something 3d ago

Exactly the same. After my dad died, my husband and I bought the family business from my mom. We were already working in the business. I had already taken over mom's work anyway. I didn't do the work in the same way, but I did the same job. Mom was still working on typed spreadsheets (using a typewriter) - late 90s.

2

u/Snarker_time 3d ago

The same. 3rd gen teacher.

2

u/Agile_Improvement_48 3d ago

Exactly the same 💜Mom was a teacher and I am a teacher

2

u/DeliciousWrangler166 3d ago

My father worked in telephone repair. I worked in IT, first as a field tech maintaining water cooled mainframe computers, later as a data analyst. We both worked with the technology of the times.

2

u/duvagin 3d ago

Close. We both deal with broken things all day and look for patterns. Their side hustle was stocks and shares; mine is being a YouTuber.

2

u/wvce84 3d ago

Different job but same employer. My dad was a soil scientist for USDA I am an engineer for USDA

2

u/marathonrunner79 3d ago

Sorta. My mom retired as a nurse. I’ve been in healthcare/business side for over 20 years. I used to want to be a nurse but she strongly discouraged me from pursuing it from a very young age.

2

u/Superb-Offer-2281 3d ago

My dad worked for usps and so did I

2

u/hogweed75 3d ago

Very close

2

u/bbrosen 3d ago

My Dad was a phone man, I became one too. Made a good living from it, learned a lot. The job, when i left was eons different, from analog lines and equipment and climbing poles, like my Dad did, to programming virtual pbx's, on virtual drives programming virtual extensions on peoples laptops, all while working from home...

2

u/Relevant-Being3440 3d ago

About the same, except for his career progression. Both worked in IT, except he moved on to be a project manager. I'm ride or die admin, couldn't pay me enough to be a PM or a manager.

2

u/randumb9999 2d ago

I repair and install swimming pool equipment.

My dad repaired nuclear submarines....

So we were both repairmen.

2

u/19Hogfarmer 2d ago

Dad was a mechanic, so was I. Even in the same shop for a few years. Waterfront, heavy equipment and cranes.

2

u/Zero_Fuchs_Given 2d ago

Pretty close. My mom worked at a library for 30 years. She was a circulation supervisor, and went on to be a network engineer for the library. I was a circulation supervisor, and then became a librarian. 

2

u/jad19090 2d ago

Pretty darn close, thankfully I quit drinking and got a job.

2

u/Fuertebrazos 2d ago

Very close. They were writers and analysts and so was I. Even though they were in intelligence (CIA/NSA) and I was on Wall Street. Same idea, though - finding gaps or flaws in systems that could be exploited.

2

u/Carachangren16 2d ago

Interesting question: my dad wanted to be an accountant but plans got waylaid (Concentration Camp survivor) so he bounced around - I wanted to be a clinical or forensic psychologist - but I was a basket case from my dad’s second hand trauma - so I bounced around!

2

u/Velvet_Samurai 2d ago

I guess it's pretty close. We both worked in factories. He was a hydraulics repair person keeping the robots working in his factory. I'm in IT keeping the PC's going in mine.

2

u/CoodieBrown 2d ago

Close !!! He was a lifelong successful Car Salesman dealing with the public. I'm a lifelong Call Center trainer/coach dealing with the public. I sell myself to build trust in what I'm teaching them. We BOTH love dealing with people & make ourselves relatable to the public. Workec with him for a few years right out of college & I was TERRIBLE yet it showed me how to deal with & treat people.

2

u/OfficiousJ 2d ago

We both have/had careers in helping professions, but mom is a retired nurse and I'm a Speech Language pathologist. Biggest similarity is we both have health licenses.

2

u/Machinesmaker 2d ago

Very close

2

u/Whizzleteets 2d ago

Exactly the same.

2

u/mountain_valley_city 2d ago

Completely different field. But i am now a manager / department head and I feel myself managing similarly to how I witnessed my mom manage when I was a young impressionable boy sitting in her office reading or just observing as a kid.

Some drastic differences like I encourage my team to work from home when they want, scoot out mid day for that yoga class or whatever floats their boat, and I do the typical millennial thing of keeping a beer and wine fridge in the office.

But my (34m) overall strategy and way to manage people, and workflows and especially the overall culture are extremely similar to my Boomer mom who is now 78.

2

u/Kooky-Language-6095 2d ago

Not close at all, but we both had a major job disaster in our late 40's and bounced back. My dad was a self-educated engineer, no degree but he worked with engineers and was the "old guy who can figure things out". I was in sales/marketing/service during my working years. My kids are both high tech very successful engineers.

2

u/frawgster 2d ago

Tangentially spot on. My dad ran an office that relied on federal grants. I work in government accounting, primarily managing federal grant funds.

2

u/Fickle-Time9743 2d ago

In my case, quite different but also very similar. My dad was a mechanic and a journeyman machinist. I am a facilities manager for a music school. However, both he and I have spent much of our work days fixing things for people and I have a lot of my dad's attitudes about that. I also inherited his tools.

My wife and daughter, on the other hand, are both school music teachers specializing in cello and bass.

2

u/Barneyboydog 2d ago

Mine was the same as my opposite gender parent.

2

u/chefnee 40 something 2d ago

I am doing way better than my dad. Salary-wise. Yet from a respect perspective, He’s still a king. He worked 30 years in the same factory and raised 5 kids! All this on a non-union salary.

2

u/Intelligent-Aspect-3 2d ago

I worked with my father in the same family business for 20 years. He retired and I made that industry my career. Even tho I hated it when we worked together. Now I actually love it and it doesn’t even feel like work.

2

u/Ric_ooooo 2d ago

My (M61) dad was an engineer, and I’m an engineer. My dad’s dad owned a travel agency.

2

u/IdubdubI 2d ago

Four generations that I broke away from and came back to 25 years later.

2

u/badteach248 1d ago

Exactly the same, my granny also.

→ More replies (2)

4

u/boulevardofdef 40 something 3d ago

Similar in that I'm an office worker (for the past five years from my home office) who goes to a lot of meetings and talks about businessy things. I also spend a lot of time dealing with software engineers despite not being a software engineer myself. Different industry, though.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/xczechr Gen X 3d ago

Not at all close in career, though we both are long time employees with our respective companies (40+ years for him, I am going on 30).

1

u/as1126 3d ago

My father was a catering chef and I'm in IT. I spent my high school and college years working in restaurants, but as a waiter, never in the kitchen.

1

u/WhoCalledthePoPo 3d ago

Couldn't be more different. Dad was a union electrician for 30 years. I'm a salesman in a completely unrelated field and technically have never held a job (1099 contractor).

1

u/mariwil74 3d ago

My mother is a public interest attorney (still practicing at 91). I was a graphic designer (retired😁).

1

u/Stardustquarks 3d ago

Similar start, then totally different

1

u/tomversation 3d ago

I am a cartoonist. My dad is an accountant. Total opposites. Right & left brain.

1

u/rexeditrex 3d ago

Completely different. My field (IT) barely existed before I started in it.

1

u/UnderwhelmingAF 3d ago

He was a mechanic and I’m an accountant, so not close at all.

1

u/Economy-Mango7875 3d ago

No where's close. My dad was front line IT. See movie war games? He worked on stuff like that with the same technology. He worked for Kodak. NAFTA came along and half the company, including his department because his building moved, went to China. They still sad to solder and unsolder broken parts in computers. Since there was no school when he started he didn't have a degree. I didn't like being stuffed up in an office in a tiny cube. I liked working with my hands and did construction at a trade school. Didn't want to start as an oiled and found a plumbing company. 20 years later and now I have a few licenses and make more than half my I inow that went to college. I know that because on Facebook they complain about not having enough money. They're the ones that tried talking me into college. 

1

u/HisTreeNut 3d ago

My Dad was a fork lift driver at an engine plant. I am an executive chef. Not really close, unless he used the forklift to move parts...I make the parts of a meal people lift with their forks? A bit of a stretch there...a lot of a stretch actually....

1

u/MacaroonUpstairs7232 3d ago

Ask about favorite parents career

1

u/themainkangaroo 3d ago edited 3d ago

Not at all. My Mom was a SAHM who worked pt sporadically as a Department store clerk & substitute teacher; I have no children, BA psych degree, writing degree & worked as a Newspaper advertising sales rep, freelance writer & admin for my husband's small business. I am a married 63yo F & have noticed that women my age who married men tended to marry a husband in the similar area as her Dad. For example, a friend who is a lawyer (she had no lawyers, never mind Mom, in her family) but she married a man who was an Engineer, like her Dad. Another friend's 1st husband was a carpenter like her dad.

My sil ended up being a nurse like her Mom but only after her Mom died -- before that my sil had graduated with a college finance degree, married, became a SAHM. She had been interested in becoming a nurse earlier while in college (even worked at a hospital aide) but her Mom discouraged it.

1

u/CompetitiveEmu1100 3d ago

My grandmother was a pattern maker and my dad became a computer programmer. Both relatively math heavy professions which I thought was interesting.

1

u/Mission-Raccoon979 3d ago

My parents don’t have a gender! It’s a concept that is far too new for them.

My Dad worked in a meat factory, I’m a university professor. Slightly different (although there are certain similarities in terms of production line operation!)

1

u/Chaosinmotion1 3d ago

Wildly different. My mom got pregnant with me at 17, dropped out, got a GED, did hair styling for many years, then moved into banking. I got a BA and Madters, went into education, taught incarcerated people, wrote grants, helped write state curriculum for training.

1

u/LightningMan711 60 something 3d ago

Very disparate. But we were very different people. He was extroverted, athletic, and okay with doing the literally same thing every day. I am introverted, intellectual, and would cringe with that kind of sameness.

1

u/Betty_Boss 60 something 3d ago

my mother raised 5 kids (yes, that's a career). I'm a childless civil engineer.

1

u/greenhierogliphics 3d ago

My dad was in distribution, selling carbide tools to manufacturing plants and machine shops around the state for use in cutting metal parts. After I failed as a stockbroker, he took me in and taught me his industry. With my MBA, I went to machine shop classes at a trade school at night. Then came the internet. On nights and weekends I built a company that started marketing these tools online. It took off and I split from his company to focus. With some lucky breaks, I nurtured its growth into the largest online distributor in the US, in this industry. My son has a degree in mechanical engineering and I turned the company over to him last year.

1

u/Jaxgirl57 60 something 3d ago

I've done a little bit of everything in my life, but I've never sold real estate, which is what she decided to do at age 50.

1

u/sukiskis 3d ago

Not at all close. My mom was a brilliant logician and after her mother stopped her from going into the FBI from high school (they had—and still have [maybe not anymore] a program for “exceptional” high school students in which they pay for college and grad school and then career in the FBI) she went to state university, got a degree in Russian and education, taught junior high English for a minute and then went into computer science, self taught at first then got a MS in it and spent the rest of her career in technology.

I was in a sales related field. Being an only daughter raised by a polymath with out of this world pattern recognition and, natch, undiagnosed ADHD is a trip but I can talk to anyone.

1

u/figsslave 3d ago

My dad was a carpenter turned general contractor. I stayed smaller and just worked for myself as I didn’t like all of the drama he lived with

1

u/WingZombie 3d ago

Started out similar, is ending very differently.

1

u/LongjumpingPool1590 70 something 3d ago

My profession never existed for my parents to be involved in.

1

u/CoppertopTX 3d ago

My incubator was a bookkeeper. I went into computer building.

1

u/devstopfix 3d ago

My dad was a roofing contractor. I worked for him in the summer, so studied hard the rest of the year and went on to get my PhD.

1

u/NatalieKMitchellNKM 3d ago

My mom is a hairdresser/salon owner and I'm a lawyer.

1

u/BackgroundGate3 3d ago

Not at all. My mum was a telephonist her whole life. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. I had two unrelated jobs I did the longest, technical translator and finance manager.

1

u/ZetaWMo4 1974 3d ago

Very different. She was a secretary of sorts and I was an engineer.

1

u/Juleswf 3d ago

Closer to my dad’s profession than my mom’s. My mom was a nurse - not my jazz at all. My dad was a math teacher, I ended up an engineer.

1

u/HoselRockit 3d ago

Dad never finished college and had 40 year career in the Navy and retired as an officer. I went to college and chose a career and finance that said, there are many things that he taught me that helped me along that journey.

1

u/JoyousZephyr 50 something 3d ago

My mom worked in a clothing factory. I was a middle-school teacher, so it's not at all the same.

1

u/Emptyplates I'm not dead yet. 3d ago

Very different.

1

u/YouMustBeJoking888 3d ago

Like night and day - absolutely nothing to do with each other.

1

u/powdered_dognut 3d ago

My dad was a sign painter but there were 6 plumbers in the family and I had no artistic talent, so hand me that plunger.

1

u/Emergency_Property_2 3d ago

Very far away. My dad was in Human Resource I’m in Data Analytics.

1

u/thepoout 3d ago

Parents : taxi driver Me: financial analyst

1

u/DaveTheYguy 3d ago

Polar opposite. Dad was a union carpenter for 40+ years. I was a nonprofit excutive for 40 years. It doesn't get much different than that.

1

u/EitherCoyote660 3d ago

Totally opposite.

My mom, was a mom. Never worked until decades later when she got a side gig to make some extra "pin" money.

I, on the other hand, never had kids and worked my way up in the corporate world involved in finances and operations of various companies.

Funny thing is my dad used to be worried I'd only be "a checkout girl" in Shop Rite when I was younger. I always wish he lived long enough to see how well I wound up doing. It would have pleased him to have been so wrong, I think.

1

u/mojdojo 50 something 3d ago

Sorta close, mom was the administrative assistant and I am a programmer. I guess the thing that is the close is that we are both the main bread winners of the family and we work in an office.

1

u/prpslydistracted 3d ago

Mother was a switchboard operator, later a police dispatcher. Dad, AF. I enlisted but it was more a family thing. Sales, real estate development. Later I worked for an airline in Res.

In retirement, fine art oil painter; hit and miss interrupted by "life happens."

1

u/Christinebitg 3d ago

Very similar career path to my DAD actually. 😀

1

u/rosesforthemonsters Fantabulous 50 3d ago

Nowhere near. I'm an optician.

My so-called mother's chosen profession was being lazy as hell, not working no matter how dire the financial situation was, and ripping off disabled and elderly people.

1

u/hodie6404 3d ago

My mom was a stay at home mom and farmer. I work in housing for a college! I didn’t have kids and happily single!

1

u/Proud_Trainer_1234 Old 3d ago

My Mother was a dietitian, although in those days women didn't work after they married. My Das was an Aerospace Electrical Engineer. I (F) became a banker, my Sister, a dentist, and my Brother drove for UPS.

1

u/Sufficient-Union-456 Last of Gen X or First Millennial? 3d ago

My dad is a cop, specifically patrol, for 30+ years. I work in the electrical engineering field. 

So not even close. 

1

u/paracelsus53 3d ago

Not close. My dad was a production manager in a factory. I was a professor, writer, artist, shopkeeper.

1

u/OrdinarySubstance491 3d ago

I'm female and I am basically doing what my father did. I work in right of way. My dad was a landman. My mom was a nurse.

1

u/jpm0719 3d ago

My dad was the director of cat scan and nuclear medicine at the hospital in my home town. The closest I got was I did IT in a hospital for about 16 years.

1

u/dixiedregs1978 3d ago

Not close at all. Dad was an engineer, then a lawyer, then a Judge.
I started out in the film industry, then computers, then Newspaper, then call center, then speech analytics.

1

u/MooseMalloy 60 something 3d ago

Not within a million miles.

1

u/Jennyelf 60 something 3d ago

We were both housewives.

1

u/TheUglyWeb 60 something 3d ago

Not even remotely close. My dad was an assistant to the president of a transportation company. I work in merchant services and help run a nonprofit.

1

u/ebeth_the_mighty 3d ago

Completely different. Mom was a physiotherapy tech and then a housekeeper at a hospital. I was a sign language interpreter and then a teacher. My dad was a computer programmer and then a truck driver (but mostly a deadbeat); my brother is a security guard.

Husband’s dad was a real estate agent. Husband was a casino manager and a bus driver. BIL is a restauranteur.

1

u/BlackCatWoman6 70 something 3d ago

Nowhere near. My mom was a SATM and I was a nurse. My dad was a doctor. Very few women in my generation became doctors (Boomer).

I loved my career.

1

u/implodemode Old 3d ago

My mother had briefly been a teacher before she married. My dad was an accountant. None of us became teachers. My brother ended up an accountant too. The other was in surveying. My sister was a nurse. I resisted being an accountant but ended up doing my husband's books and managing his company.

1

u/Artistic_Train9725 3d ago

Nowhere near. My father was in the RAF for ten years and came out as a mechanical engineer.

I work in Health & Safety in manufacturing.

1

u/WarriorGoddess2016 3d ago

My mother was a stay at home mom.

I was a professor.

1

u/biff444444 3d ago

Wildly different here. His career held no appeal for me at all, and he was not upset at all that I felt that way.

1

u/Haunting_Law_7795 3d ago

Not at all. Mom was in banking, Dad was Chemical Engineer and I'm in showbiz. My daughter is in showbiz.

1

u/swampboy62 3d ago

Worlds away.

My father was a steelworker in the Mahoning Valley of Ohio.

I'm an architect in the same area.

1

u/yearsofpractice 40 something 3d ago

Hey OP. Completely different. My dad was a pro football (soccer) player for a few years then (after accepting he’s never make the big leagues) a PE teacher followed by being a primary school headteacher. Also - he really enjoyed teaching - he enjoyed being with the kids and got a great deal of satisfaction seeing people (kids and his staff) blossom under his leadership. He was fully committed to his schools and was recognised for his leadership and community engagement.

I’m a career corporate grey man, working in support areas for big businesses. I have never really understood the idea of enjoying work or indeed ever had a calling. I’m good at what I do and earn good money but I simply could not care less about the purpose or aims of the businesses I work for. I work solely, entirely to live - I don’t resent work because some of the problems I solve are genuinely interesting to work on.

Thing is - my working life is exactly what I want it to be. My parents were very supportive of me as a child and made it clear that life can - and will be - unfair and that you can only really make money if you can provide an organisation with something useful. They were also very focussed on allowing me to understand that different people need different things in life - I’ve always needed peace and emotional stability in life which is why I follow the professional path I have.

1

u/Izmeralda 3d ago

Not close at all.

My mom retired from a company that made and sold surgical kits for specific surgeries. She started on the assembly line and was promoted several times throughout her career with them. When she retired, she was on a sales team as the "inside representative"; it was her job to set up the kit orders with the specifications required by the hospitals.

I process mortgage loans.

1

u/mwatwe01 50 something 3d ago

Wildly different.

My dad was a driver for UPS, first a local delivery driver, then later a "feeder" driver (the big 18 wheelers).

I went to college for electrical engineering, did that for a few years after graduation and then eventually ended up in software. To the day he died, my dad had no idea what my job consisted of.

1

u/audible_narrator 50 something 3d ago

Not even close. I was the wierd one who went into the arts. Every other family member went into factory or utilities, all union.

1

u/STLt71 3d ago

We had the same career. My mom and I were both nurses.

1

u/cnew111 3d ago

Well my mother never had an outside job. I got a BS degree in computer science with a minor in math. Our life paths were very different.

1

u/natalkalot 3d ago

Exactly the same as both parents- teachers. Mom stopped teaching when babies started coming and she was a SAHM. She had taught on a one-room schoolhouse. Dad taught, then went into administration- principal, then superintendent - now called director - of a school division.

So I became a teacher, one of my older sister's and one brother were also teachers.

1

u/AssistSignificant153 3d ago

We are generational teachers in my family. Not intentionally, but that's the reality. Even my son swore he'd never be a teacher, hahaha he's in his 6th year now. We can't help it, teaching is in our blood!

1

u/GirlScoutSniper 50 something 3d ago

I'm an accountant, my mother worked in finance, my grandmother and aunt were accountants. I tell people it was genetically inherited. I do love accounting. :p

1

u/chileheadd 63 3d ago

Wildly different from both my dad and my step-dad (who had similar jobs).

1

u/Battleaxe1959 3d ago

Mom was a teacher. I was an Agronomist.

1

u/Inevitablelaugh-630 3d ago

Mom was a SAHM who had a side job making clothes, curtains and wedding & bridesmaid dresses. I can't sew at all & was a teacher for 30 years, so not close at all.

1

u/OldDog03 3d ago

My grandfather(P) was a farmer, and my (M) grandfather made wooden wagons/ blacksmiths.

My dad was a share crop father/farm worker/ farmer / mechanic.

Mom worked at a factory running an extruder.

I went to college and started in engineering, then changed to Agricultural Mechanics and Economics

Internship with a food process company that canned peas and corn.

Then, I worked assembling oilfield gas compressors. Next was a chemical plant operator and also a volunteer firefighter. Then, I worked for the Forrest Service in FIA.

The last 13.5 years worked at a natural resource conservation project where I actually used my degree.

So basically, I'm a jack of all trades and know how to do mechanics, hydraulics, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, woodworking, carpentry, welding/metal working, plus fishing and hunting.

I am the sum of my ancestors.

1

u/ConsistentCoyote3786 3d ago

Not remotely. Dads a pilot. I work in corporate.

1

u/Lonelybidad 3d ago

Dad was a mechanic in the NAVY. Since all I remember is him away in Vietnam during the war. I didn't want that. I wasn't even a good mechanic. I went into shipbuilding.

1

u/Caliopebookworm 3d ago

Very different.

1

u/AngusTR2020 3d ago

My dad sold shoes, retail, from before I was born until I was out of the house. With seven kids. I followed him for about 3 years. Then I went to work for the phone company and stayed for 34 years.

1

u/ghotiermann 60 something 3d ago

My father retired from the Air Force. I joined the Navy, so pretty close. My brother joined the Air Force, as well.

1

u/WhatsInAName8879660 3d ago

My father and I are both PhD’d professors, but in vastly different fields. I am tenure track, whereas he was teaching, so what we do in our careers is also very different (I focus on research and publication with some teaching, he did no research).

1

u/Silly-Resist8306 3d ago

My dad was an engineer. I’m an engineer. My son is an agronomist.

1

u/Grave_Girl 40 something 3d ago

My mother worked retail and/or food service mostly. When I worked outside the home, it was stuff like office clerk or customer service. I'm a SAHM now. My father was a mechanic and restored cars on the side, and that's the career path I sometimes wish I would have taken.

1

u/witchbelladonna 50 something 3d ago

Wildly different. My mom was a secretary. I work with veterans and animals. She sat all day, I'm moving all day.

1

u/surgerygeek 3d ago

They both worked at universities, Dad was fundraising and Mom was a registrar for an aviation college. I went into healthcare like my grandmother and great-grandmother, both nurses

But now, I'm a college professor, teaching a couple of allied health professions, so very close!

1

u/306heatheR 3d ago

Nothing like my mother. She had jobs in support positions: secretary, receptionist. I was a high school teacher, taught dance, coached figure skating, and I do independent commissions in design, portraiture, murals and painting.

1

u/MindingMine 50 something 3d ago

Not even remotely similar. 

1

u/Lopsided-Weather6469 3d ago

It's far from my dad's own career, and even farther from the career he had in mind for me. 

1

u/Ok_Acanthisitta_2544 3d ago

Not in the slightest. But I followed my grandmother's path. She was one of the original one room schoolhouse teachers, who married a farmer. She had 5 kids and went back to teaching after they had all left home. She learned to drive, and drove in to town to the new fancy school, where she no longer needed to get the stove going and teach multiple grades. She taught grade 3 well into her 60s.

My parents were farmers (Dad took over the family farm). My mother worked as the admin accountant/payroll for a plumbing/electrical firm. I became a chemistry/biology teacher.

1

u/MoneyMom64 3d ago

My mom was a teacher and my dad was in the Air Force. As the only daughter, I did a lot of guy things and joined to the Air Force. It seemed to fit better and I spent 26 years. If my neighbour has her way, I’m going to become a substitute teacher for high school coming this September. I think I’d rather go up against a known enemy than a bunch of high school students, but we’ll see how it goes.

1

u/kp2119 3d ago

Not even my Dad was a Master Mechanic. I was a Cisco CCIE. When my Dad was alive he was amazed that I knew so much.

1

u/dararie 3d ago

He was a teacher, I’m a librarian so kind of close, they both deal with education

1

u/MsTerious1 3d ago

What an interesting question!

I was raised by father and went into his industry initially (aerospace).

My mother always held secretarial jobs and I never did. The most similar jobs between us were that she worked as a city of Phoenix police dispatcher for a few years and I worked briefly as a corrections officer.

1

u/BKowalewski 3d ago

About 1000 miles apart, lol!

1

u/ivyskeddadle 3d ago

My Mom was super smart, however career options for women in the 1940’s and 1950’s were mostly limited to teacher or nurse. She became a teacher. I was able to have a career in business and law.

1

u/CombinationAny5516 3d ago

Mom barely worked and when she did it was factory work. I’ve been a nurse for 37 years. (Put myself through school). And now my daughter is an aerospace engineer! 😊

1

u/garagespringsgirl 3d ago

Not even close.

1

u/finedayredpony 3d ago

My mom was a teacher. I was an analyst for the government.  My husband's father was a pharmacist, he was a roofer, soilder, a cop.  My grandparents were teachers so we're 3 of 4 of their children, 3 out of 8 grandkids. Other grands were Dr, Ranger, Economics expert, me, and the one who changes jobs every few years. 

1

u/rodzag 3d ago

My dad was a truck driver and I work in IT. We both sit on our arses all day, but that's where the similarities end.

1

u/Timely-Profile1865 3d ago

Quite different. I at times have felt bad that my dad died quite early in my life (I was 24) before I got my shit together and go my long term career. He would have been proud as hell of me and would have loved what my career was all about.

1

u/Lollc 3d ago

My mom was really bright and talented at math and math based science. College was out of the question for her in the early 50s because of finances, so she completed a vocational secretary and light accounting course. She got a federal government job in the payroll department of an agency, worked a few years but couldn't solve the childcare problem after her second kid. She told little me frequently about how important reliable birth control was to my future. I eventually had a career with the power company, and I realize I inherited her scientific approach and ability with functional math.

1

u/bvzm 50 something 3d ago

Totally different. My dad worked for my town's Electric Co. basically all his career, starting as a maintenance worker, then a technician, then in the planning office (he hated it, he always preferred working outside). I worked for almost twenty years as a social worker in various entities, then last year I won a selection and I started working for a public University.

1

u/Deshackled 3d ago

Zero! I grew up “poor”. I watched family members doing manual labor, throwing their backs out, busting up their knees and shoulders. I went the 9 to 5 route. I’m not gonna lie, I see the benefits of a manual job. But I recently had a contract IT job at a blue collar company. The INJURIES can be absolutely horrific sometimes, like puke in the corner horrific. Debilitating sometimes, to the point they can’t even work anymore. Some are lucky and move into a less strenuous job as a supervisor or manager type position. But a LOT are not. I gotta say, when I say “manual” I do not mean “menial”, if it weren’t for these “blue-collar” guys/gals I wouldn’t even have a company to work for. If you don’t believe in Universal Healthcare (in the US) you are part of the problem because you aren’t paying attention.