We would either directly copy what our parents did, or else we would reverentially accept

their suggestions for what we might do. Only for around the last 200 years have we been

choosing jobs for ourselves – and we're still at the beginning of learning some of the

complexities of doing so. On the surface, most families claim to have no interest in their

children doing any job in particular. The standard line is that they simply want us

to be happy. But we are not as free as this sounds. We are always hemmed in by what can

be termed "family work scripts", that is, scripts that guide us – often very subtly but also

very heavily – towards certain occupations and away from others. Part of properly growing

up – which may sometimes happen only in one's 50s – involves learning to find

a way around the scripts we've been handed. At the most benign level, our family work

scripts are the result of what our families understand of the working world. Every family

has a range of occupations that it grasps, because someone has practiced them and in

the process brought them within the imaginative range of other family members. Yet it isn't

just a case that our families might not know about certain jobs and so might cut us off from

them. They might also be positively hostile or suspicious of other jobs. We're liable

to received many little messages indicating that certain careers are inferior – and

therefore beneath us, dangerous, phoney or not quite right for our sort of station in

life. Whatever lip service might be paid to gender equality, families are also highly

talented at sending out covert messages about what a "real" man or a "real" woman

should honourably do. Yet more darkly, families may say that they want us to succeed, but

would be highly threatened if we actually did so. A choice we make might remind someone of one

of their failed ambitions. Our success might make them feel like a failure. We might try

to sabotage our chances of winning so as not to leave a loved one feeling crushed. Often

without realising it, we are being heavily controlled by our families. Controlled not

by harsh words but by something far more poignant and yet far harder to extricate ourselves

from: by our ongoing desire to be a good child, to please those who brought us into this world,

by love. Love can control us as much as force or the law ever could. We are liable to try

to be good children not just because we feel love but because we fear losing love, because

we live in dread of being cast out if we were to dare to say what we want. But here is

the good news for the timid good children. Parents very, very rarely disown their progeny. It certainly

seems they might in our imaginations forged in childhood. But the adult reality is that

families are extremely good at threatening to break apart, but then also forgiving one another,

and accommodating the most extraordinary challenges and tests. We don't know your families, but

we can guess that you could do a lot more than you think, a lot more that

might be a bit "bad" in their eyes, and still be forgiven. We owe our

parents respect and kindness. We do not owe them our lives. We should dare, when the pressure

has become unbearable, to leave their scripts aside.

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