Shall it be the heart or the mind?

SAYS Naeem, a father of five: 'I wanted at least one of my children to study medicine and become a doctor. Though none of them is a doctor today, I am happy that all are doing well in their chosen fields. If they were not interested, on my insistence or to please me they might have studied medicine, but they would not have been able to perform well and would surely not have been as happy today as they are.'

Naeem himself wanted to be a doctor, but circumstances were not in his favour, and perhaps that was the reason for his desire to see one of his children to be a doctor. However, Naeem did not force them and allowed them to study what they wanted, and says his children have done him proud as all have studied well. He does not regret his decision of not forcing his will on them despite his intense desire to see one of them donning a medic's coat.

The decades of 1970s and '80s were a bit weird. It was a time when most parents and even children aspired to pursue medicine or engineering as career, but now things have changed as more fields are opening up and children are seeking newer challenges.

On the one hand, unlike Naeem, many parents forced their children back then to follow their professions, while on the other many children themselves, inspired by the parents, chose to take the same field. There were - and are - families where parents, grandparents and children are engaged in the same profession, either by choice or per force.

Dr Shershah's family is one such unit where all children study medicine. Though his father was not a doctor himself, he made his wife study medicine after marriage and then asked all of his eight children to follow the routine. All of them are now accomplished doctors and their children are also either studying medicine or are doctors, bringing the number to above 40 within the immediate family.

The question is: who should choose what a child should study; whether parents should decide what field their children should pursue, or should the decision be left with the children themselves?

Some parents think that children are not mature enough to take such decisions. They think that at age 16 or 17 when the decision has to be taken before starting the Intermediate or its equivalent, the A levels, children are not able to understand a lot of things or foresee future trends. 'How can a child at this age take a decision all by himself/herself about what they want to study?' wonders Hammad, a banker. 'The child may be...