Career Tug-o-War: Migrant Parents vs. First-Generation Born

When i watched this it REALLY made me laugh. It reminded me so much of a slightly exaggerated relationship between my mother, me and the various schools I have attended whilst growing up. Ironically, the little girl's name is "Funmi" too! It felt like Lenny Henry has been watching me grow up and has gathered actors to play out what he's seen! Or has he really? No. Watching this made me realise that I am not the only First-Generation Black Briton to be at odds with my parents in terms of Education/Career.

I am 21 and I confess it wasn't up until a month ago that I stood my ground to my mother about what career path I had chosen for myself! Since entering university, my mum has been pushing me to become a Lawyer. I was 17 when I first looked at the UCAS home page wide-eyed with a blank expression on my face wondering what course to do at university. December 2004, when I was 16, is when I first decided I might possibly become a journalist. I told my mum back then but being young at the time - she didn't take me seriously. I had this "media thing" at the back of my mind so I decided to take English at university. I was pretty good at it in school and was flourishing at A-level so i thought why not?

If I am honest, I don't even remember when the pressure from my parents to do Law began. I know it was sometime during the course of university. Possibly sometime between second year and third year. All I know is that the pressure seemed to creep up on me, mount up and consume me. Consume me to the point where it was Bye Bye Media and a robotic and puppet-like Hello to Law. I attended countless Law fairs and visited numerous big Law firms. The smell of money was enticing but not enticing enough to silence the call to enter the Media at the back of my head.

So i have finally told my mum. It took A LOT of courage. I even needed pep talk from a selection of friends who I knew had the oratory skills to gear me up! It wasn't easy. In fact.... she cried... begged me to do Law.

These are my mothers reasons for doing Law:

• "Safe option". Safe in the sense that I have learnt a profession (almost like learning a trade). She says I can take it anywhere in the country with me because it is the same practice wherever I go. In fact, I can even set up my own practice.
• Learn the profession then I can do anything I want afterwards (i.e. I can go into the Media once I have finished Law).
• Good money

I had to let her know that this was wishful thinking and that the reality is more grim than she thinks.

"Setting up my own practice" is gonna cost a hell of a lot of money. Not only that but law school itself! Is a lot of money! £25,000 to be exact! If I'm going to spend that amount of money, I have to be sure that this is what I want to do - and I wasn't - hence why I began to brake before I crashed head first into career disaster.

By the time I actually qualify as a solicitor/barrister I will be no younger than 26 but realistically 28. If the latter is the case, having a career change at that point in a females life is not good. Employers will see you as indecisive. At that age you want to begin to set up or establish your family but you can't because you're in the middle of completely changing industries! You're probably going to go into MORE debt because you have to obtain an extra qualification to enter the new industry you have chosen. *sighs* The very thought of it makes me tired!

Good money?! Do not be fooled. If there is something I have learnt from all those law fairs and speaking with countless lawyers it's this: Only the small percentage of graduates get the big training contracts in the city which lead to the "good money" my mum is talking about. Even then, the city law firms like to be politically correct and choose not to mention on their recruitment websites that you have to be smoking-hot off the press from Oxbridge. Even then, you still might not get a training contract!

Aside from all these reasons, for me a career in Law just never was on the radar. Actually, it was, when i was about 7! My "cool aunty" was a high flying lawyer shopping in Harrods and Selfridges and I wanted to be like her. But that soon wore off.

So yes, when it comes to choice of career, it is a Tug-o-War between your migrant parents and you who was born and brought up here in the UK. I had to explain to my mum that things had changed since she entered Britain. Opportunities that were once closed to them are now open to us. So therefore there is no need to dwell on the doctrine that Mahlete-Tsigé Getachew in her essay 'Enter The Professionals' called "The Holy Trinity of Doctor-Lawyer-Engineer". There are other professions that are open to Black British people.

The journalist Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa called First-Generation Borns as a "pioneering generation" and we really are. There are so many opportunities in a western world that are available to us and wouldn't have been if we were still in Africa or the Caribbean.

So i just want to encourage people who are suffering this same Tug-o-War with their parents like me to pause, think, then act. Research about what you REALLY want to do. But also research what your parents are suggesting - you never know, what they are suggesting might really be the career for you. Think about how you might feel doing a particular career for the next 50 or so years of your life. Would you be happy? Will it serve to produce the kind of lifestyle you want? E.g. There's no point saying you want to be a journalist if you want to make a million by the time you're 25.

One thing i really want to suggest is understand where your parents are coming from. They are coming from a culture where you must beat everyone in your class and please the family even if it means sacrificing their own happiness.

If you're going through or can identify with this Tug-o-war leave a comment. Or perhaps you disagree with me? - leave a comment. I'd really like to hear your thoughts..

Fum