your essay is cryptic and your daughter is beautiful. What is your PhD in? And are you glad you pursued it? My son is thinking about applying to a sociology program and getting mixed feedback from his professors
Sent on May 29

Hi, thank you for the message and for your kind words re my daughter. i read somewhere that brevity is the soul of wit, and that idea has always stuck with me. my ph.d. is in economics. am i glad i pursued it? answering that question would have brevity rolling in the aisle, doubled over with laughter. to your son i would say, why not apply? one can always decline an acceptance. i'm happy to discuss it with you, very nice of you to be thinking of your son and trying to offer the best counsel possible.
Sent on May 29

Good point on the application but he is judiciously lazy and does'nt want to invest time and energy in the GRE and essays if he is not going to follow through .

I am a lawyer so offering best counsel is knee jerk at this point. But it is certainly a pleasure to do it for a child. Especially when they show an interest in your advice. Funny how I was the dumbest woman in the world until the last few years:)
Sent on May 31

i look at laziness in a bit of a strange way. it's one's body telling how excited one is about any given endeavor. a ph.d. takes, if nothing else, a lot of stamina and stick-to-it-iveness, so if one is feeling lazy about the application process, not a great harbinger if one's goal is getting the degree. if one's goal is learning something new, it's a different matter entirely.

i guess i'm saying if he doesn't feel excited about the application process, perhaps he should consider alternatives that he might be more excited about. no judgement here.

you have entered a beautiful phase in your relationship with your son. not sure i'm quite there yet, but will love it if and when it happens. and i've always been learning from my daughter. that's a great feeling too. :)
Sent on May 31

Daughters are different, I have one of those too. She is not interested in my counsel, it annoys her, at best. But when she is sick or lonely or wants to vent about her boyfriend, I do get the call. But maybe father/daughter has greater potential .......I have always heard that the same gender parent child relationships are more conflicted than opposite. Certainly true for me.

And I am not sure my son's hesitation is lack of interest as much as fear of rejection and a practical knowledge that he is going to have to earn a living. He is doing his master's thesis now and is certainly enamored of the learning and the research. Life is lot more challenging for this generation career wise than ever before
Sent on Jun 1

if he is enamored with learning and research, then i say go learn and do research! careers were for our generation. that mode of going through life works for fewer and fewer people, in my humble opinion. if one follows one's curiosity and interests, one will be able to weave the skills, experiences, and knowledge one has accumulated along the way into something that is useful to others.

he may not be able to (or want to) use the ph.d. degree in ways it is traditionally used, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't go through the program. if he likes learning and research, he can certainly find a program where he can do that. and the ways he can use what he has learned/experienced can be applied to a million things.

his professors may be advising him from their (outdated) paradigm, which is the only reason one should work to get a ph.d. is if one wants to teach at a university. they see those opportunities shrinking, ergo they advise your son that it might not be a good idea to get a ph.d.
Sent on Jun 3

Thanks. Very good advice. I would love for him to go for the PhD. I think he should follow his passions and I think he will be able to leverage it to earn a reasonable living and because every Jewish mother wants to raise a scholar:)