Professional Future of Girls

If you’re like me you give some thought to giving your kids career advice. We’re big on academics and when Ainsley says, What should I do when I grow up? We are clear, You must do something that makes money. You choose what it is, find your purpose, but you must be able to take care of yourself.

As a writer I have found it difficult to make my way in this profession. Not because I’ve had difficulty finding work. But, because I’ve had difficulty being PAID good money for the work I do. This is going to change for me any minute. I know it. I’m currently accepting offers to be paid good money for what I’m doing here. Feel free to email me at traceesioux@yahoo.com to send offers.

I’ve flirted with the idea of pushing my children towards medicine and scientific professions. All you have to do is look in the want ads or interview your friends about how much money they make to realize that:

1. Life is easier if you have money.

2. Science, technology, medical left brain thinking pays more money and those jobs are always available.

I write because I love it and I’m meant to do it, but I’ve many times wished I had just gone and been a physical therapist like my friends Christy and Cindy. It just would have been easier, more stable and secure.

Then I listened to this guy Daniel Pink on Oprah’s Soul Series talk about how creative people – people like myself, writers, artists, designers, spiritual leaders, talkers – right brain thinkers are inheriting the earth and its economics in the very near future. In fact, he believes it is already happening and we should prepare our children for creative professions. Because those will be the secure and stable ones.

Daniel Pink wrote A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
and he says that left brain activities, like accounting, mathematics, computer and science careers, are the ones that will be outsourced or we’ll make software and machines to do that work during our children’s careers.

The more secure bet? Right Brain Careers that involve creativity, innovation, individuality, design, empathy, and meaning, story telling, big picture thinking.

Is it a coincidence that these attributes and skills have also been traditionally feminine skills which we have always rewarded in girls, but which have also traditionally made far less money and carried less social value?

Watch it for free on Oprah’s Soul Series – he’s got facts to back it up and it’s a convincing argument.

It might change the way you talk to your kids about their future professions. It might change how you react when your 17-year-old announces she is going to art school.