I See a Career in My Child's Future

My father was in the Air Force. All four siblings breathed huge sighs of relief when our oldest brother went ROTC in college and then entered the Air Force. We were off the hook. Bonus? He went on to reproduce quickly, freeing the rest of us up from the pressure to do the same. [Remember, I came late to the parenting game. By the time I had my first child, my father had been dead nearly a decade, and my brother's kids were into the teen years already.]


Up until just a couple of days ago, I was of the mind to not pressure my kids into any particular career path. My mantra is was "Graduate from college and do a job you won't hate." No more. Based on my experience over the last week or so with all of our home computers being essentially fried and spending triple-digit dollars and double-digit hours online with tech support, I have decided the only career path for at least one of them is IT.

My thinking is this will best suit me in my old age. Now, you might think it would be handy to have a doctor in the family. Nope. The good ole U.S. of A. is more than happy to pay for my health care when I'm old. Let me be a drain on the taxpayers as a whole rather than my offspring.


But computer problems? Sadly, the U.S. hasn't gone socialist enough -- nor do I think it ever will -- to fund computer repairs and Trojan horse removals and computer virus inoculation. It costs a freakin' fortune to counteract those effin' hackers in the Ukraine who get off on effin' with good ole Americans' ability to telecommute, not to mention being able to access Netflix for the latest American Dad episode or post snarky diatribes about the school district. [Nothing against the Ukraine, mind you. I'm sure the non-hackers there are just fabulous folks.]


So one of my kids needs to go into tech support. I will, however, heed the advice of the tech support guy at AVG I spent quality hours with on Friday and make sure that child of mine does not get into the whole sweatshop atmosphere of a call center.