Graham and I have been having weekly check in calls about his search for an internship for next summer. This last week I was trying to nudge him on the importance of having informational interviews and talking to people about their jobs, their industries, their career paths -- as compared to the general futility of firing off resumes to random megacorporations across their career web sites -- and I visibly upset him. So much so that we needed to cut the call short.
I immediately apologized, but he didn't respond for 24 hours or so. With Graham it's never 100% clear if he is intentionally ghosting me or whether he just didn't see the text (as he sometimes claims, perhaps plausibly). But I know I experienced it as being cut off, which saddened me tremendously. The last thing we ever want as parents is to upset our kids. There are moments to administer some tough love, and I guess that job and career search is a domain in which some non-intuitive learnings need to be conveyed, but it doesn't need to be in a way that upsets our kids.
I know of parents who have been flat out cut off by their kids, one of them because of their son's borderline psychotic girlfriend. Somehow they have been able to carry on with their lives. Ultimately one has to realize that one does the best that one can, is not in control of other people and that time heals most wounds. But it's hard.
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