The meme quickly evolved with people replacing ‘doctor’ with the profession their parents value the most. Even journalists are sharing the meme, making quips about their dads telling them to “Go and see if finding a second source helps.”
Some families are more predisposed to pressure their kids into following a certain profession than others. For example, Asian communities often value being a doctor or a lawyer very much and some do put a lot of pressure on their children to succeed in those areas.
“The drive for success and status within Asian American culture can be quite intense. For many, being a medical doctor is considered to be the pinnacle of achievement and virtually nothing can make an Asian parent more proud than having his/her son or daughter reach the status of joining the medical profession. At the same time, many young Asian Americans resent the pressure, direct and indirect, that their parents place on them to become a doctor,” explains Asian Nation.
Such pressure can do more harm than good. Ranjana Srivastava, writing for The Guardian, agrees with this conclusion. “A career in medicine is stressful enough for the doctors who see it as a calling. For those who do it because their parents forced them, it could be critical,” she writes.
“Students pondering a career in medicine, I have always welcomed. Parents who do it on behalf of their child, I am increasingly wary of. The students are largely altruistic; the parents aspire to status, money and job security. I don’t blame them but what they don’t realize is that in the hyper-competitive world of medicine, even those with the marks and motivation battle to get in, so there is even less room for those with the marks but scant motivation,” Srivastava explains that kids have to see medicine as a calling and pursue it of their own will.
