My son (17M) has always been a history lover. By 6th grade, he began watching history videos and later down the road began buying history books. It was always his favorite subject, and he always got As or at worst Bs during both middle school and high school.
In his mind, he always said he wanted to be a history teacher, which I always supported him on, since he was so passionate about it. Also, as a philosophy major, I’ve always respected people who study history, since It’s an essential part of my own career (just as philosophy is also key in understand history).
However, as my son reached senior year, I saw on his card report that history was actually his 2nd worst grade. He got a the equivalent of a C- in the US. That was very shocking to me, since he had never in his life gotten anything lower than a B. However, I did notice that his overall grades were pretty good, and I was very happy to find out that philosophy was actually his 2nd best subject with an A-.
After getting the card report, me and my husband wanted to talk to him and congratulate him for the grades. However, since my son will be going to college next year, I did want to give him some advice. I told him at the end of the conversation that perhaps he should reconsider studying history, and instead do something like philosophy since ever since he had studied the subject last year he always got extremely good grades at it.
My son did not take this well at all, I don’t know if it was my wording or if he misinterpreted it, but he just started freaking out, saying that I had basically told him he was not good enough for history. I told him I didn’t mean that, I just said that he should consider other career choices. But no, he insisted that I was insinuating he was making a mistake. The argument escalated the moment he said that he wouldn’t take any advice from either me or my husband because we only provided shit advice for his life. I told him that fine, I wouldn’t give him advice anymore, but I told him to not come crying to me if he struggled in college.
After he kept complaining about me not understanding him or his love for history, I told him to do some chores, which he did. I will admit that was probably childish on my end, but I was really upset he had just done this whole tantrum over advice which was meant to help him out. I later on talked with my husband about it, and he said that our son’s reaction was completely non-sensical, but that he understood that he might’ve actually percieved it like an attack on the thing he always excelled at, which was history, and he probably was the first person to know that his grade in history was clearly bad for someone like him.
I know my intentions were good, but maybe I should’ve taken into consideration that my son was probably also extremely dissapointed in his grade.
AITA?
Why can’t you just be supportive and if he fails be there for him and not be nasty about it? YTA
Yeah YTA. What you SHOULD have done was talk to him about where he thought he might’ve gone wrong to get that grade and see if he wanted to try and do anything to boost it somehow if that sort of thing is an option where you are. One slipped grade is not grounds to tell him to rethink his entire career path, especially when the alternative recommendation is a subject that you have a bias towards
I agree it seems like OP just wants their son to choose Philosophy like them
This is difficult, bc I know you meant well, but at the same time if he’s passionate about the subject and still passed the class then I don’t think he should have to reconsider. If he’s always gotten excellent grades at history then one bad grade shouldn’t determine that he’s bad at the subject. Even then grades aren’t always a 100% foolproof method to show that he understands history, much less his passion for it. Besides, they don’t teach the same history every year so this one probably wasn’t his year or type of history. I want to say YTA because telling him he shouldn’t come back crying when he failed college is messed up. I’m sure he would do great.
YTA because you approached this with zero curiosity. Did you even ask him about the grade first? Jumping straight to telling him to reconsider his desired career path is out of line. There can be reasons why you struggle in a specific class, you should be asking him about it instead of jumping to conclusions.
Wow. YTA. Not supportive. I studied my major – a subject I was good at- and things were difficult here and there. Hearing a parent say – don’t come crying yo me would have broke me. High and college- two very different times/maturity.
Maybe the history they teach in high school isn’t the history he’s interested in. You can go to university and study something not job oriented. The path to a career is not a straight line.
Ywbta if you keep harping on it
YTA.
He’s not you. Let him excel or fail in his own life lessons. There are many reasons that grade could have been low. You don’t know what was going on at school during the year.
Passion is important in what people do for their careers. You’ll find that the people who are passionate about what they do are happier and actually enjoy their work/careers. Quit trying to change him into what you *want* him to be and *let him be who he wants to*.
Edit: You also need to apologize to your son for punishing him when he essentially did nothing wrong except react to your bad parenting because you insulted him and told him he couldn’t depend on you. And your husband is almost as bad considering he said that the reaction was nonsensical. At least he stated understood that your son saw it as the attack it was. But you both need to let your son live his own life and follow his own dreams. NOT the ones you want him to take because you want him to follow in your footsteps.
I don’t see where you asked him why his grade in history was C-. Is it because he reads and studies the topics and challenges the teacher? Because I would bet that’s the case. Which says he’s actually really good at history. The way in which you are definitely the AH is telling a school aged kid that you won’t support them when they fall. I suggest another calm conversation with him which begins with your sincere apology
Extreme YTA. So the poor kid was probably already upset by the bad grade, and instead of asking what went wrong or how you could help, you told him his whole life plan was wrong. It could be that he got a bad grade on one test. It could be a teacher he didn’t get along with. It could be a particular type of history that doesn’t interest him. There are so many reasons he could have done poorly in that one class, and none of those reasons warrant you telling him he should give up his dream. And then when he was justifiably upset by your lack of support, you told him to go do chores?! Go apologize to your son and ask him to tell you about the class. And then LISTEN.
“I did want to give him some advice.” He didn’t ask for advice though, it was just your unsolicited opinion tearing him down, what did you think would happen?
“I told him to not come crying to me if he struggled in college.” This statment here proves just how unsupportive of a parent you are.
This isn’t about trying to help him, it’s about trying to control him, to do what *you* want, because *you* know best. He’s not an extension of you. He’s his own person. Let him make his choices and as a parent you’re there to be supportive, even when they make the *wrong choice* or at least the choice you wouldn’t have picked.
YTA
YTA. You don’t have good intentions as you say and stop trying to live your life through your son. One bad grade (C’s aren’t even bad, get a grip) one time isn’t going to ruin his whole life. You’re being childish and petty and I know 5-10 years down the road you’ll be making a Reddit post asking why my son doesn’t talk to me anymore if you keep this up.
YTA.
If you’re good at one humanities subject at high school level, you’ll be good at them all as they all use pretty similar skills (critical thinking, analysis, persuasive writing, essay writing). I highly doubt that the C- is because he’s inexplicably untalented at the one subject he actually loves.
I think it’s really unfortunate that your kid has a huge passion in life, and when you see him ‘fail’ as a one off at that passion, your first response is essentially tell him to give up and pursue something he dislikes. Why not arrange a meeting with his teacher to discuss how you can support him to improve? My guess is that his passion is actually getting in the way- maybe he info-dumps facts without following the assignment properly, or maybe he dislikes the period of history he’s currently studying and that’s affecting his effort.
Is “pursue a career in philosophy” good advice? 🤔