I am an Indian in US. I want my kid to become a doctor but he shows undue interest in arts. Initially it was just scribbling but now it’s like IT. How do I discourage my 6 year old kid from arts, paintings, and dinosaurs?

Someone who plans ahead to such an extent may find it well worth their while to mull through to the end possible outcomes from forcing a child away from art and into a medical school without regard to the child's wish. Let's consider a few such plausible future scenarios.

Scenario 1

Whoo! Glad to be done with the day. Great to lean back and enjoy some of this fine scotch. What's that? Yet another poor report card from Sanjeev? Apparently he's been lollygagging again, even after we confiscated all his art supplies. Honestly, I just don't know what to do about this boy. I'm at my wit's end. Why can't he appreciate how fortunate he is? I too was miserable at his age. Wanted to do nothing but play with paints and brushes. Look at me now. I hunkered down, gritted my way through medical school even though I hated every minute of it. That's what it takes to be a man, make the best of a bad situation and become responsible. Would he have so many advantages without all my sacrifice? Ungrateful little sniffler. Why should he get his own way when I couldn't? He's going to have to learn to be miserable just like me and roll with the punches. If I could do it, so can he.

Scenario 2

Dead at 28. How could I have known he was so miserable? Relatives buzzing around and yet everyone's so careful to keep their distance from me. Obviously too scared to ask why. Why did he jump? Why didn't he come to me if he was so miserable? Why did I do it? Why did I push him into medical school when he was just so miserable about it? All those times of 'Dad, can I...no, nothing, it's nothing'. It was all right there in front of me, his misery but I just didn't want to see it.

Scenario 3

Look at me. I look 50+ and I'm not even 40 yet. Wife walks by, yelling at me to take my feet off the coffee table. So what's new? Nag, nag, nag, can this woman even do anything else? Why is she even my wife? Ah, yes, dad, did everything dad told me to do including marry this woman and I can't even stand her. What? Now I can't even drink in my own house? I'll do as I damn well please in my own house. It's my house, dammit, paid for with my sweat and blood. Literal blood in the hospital. Hate the sight of blood, heh, and I'm a doctor. Ah, that sure hits the spot. Best medicine to take the edge off of her infernal nagging and that miserable hospital. Hate hospitals and oh, how I hate the patients, smelly, complaining, always complaining. Why did I even become a doctor? Dad again.

Nag's back. Sister's on the phone. Apparently it's about dad. Don't know why she went to visit him in the nursing home. Says something about bed sores. Thinks they're neglecting him. What the hell do I care about his effing bed sores? They can neglect him to death as far as I'm concerned. My life's a misery and he's to blame for all of it. Depressing old tyrant, he can rot in that nursing home for all I care. Ah, the latest brochure from the Museum of ***. Have been looking forward to their fall exhibition. Let's see, mmm...

Though being a considerate parent who doesn't force their agenda onto their children is no guarantee a child wouldn't grow up resentful and uncaring anyway, the men in these scenarios seem bitter or anguished, even contemptible, with no mystery as to how they got that way.

Why choose to inflict misery? And that's what a parent does when they force their kid to become a doctor or anything else regardless of what they themselves want. Such parents should then also wholeheartedly accept the outcome however that might play itself out, whether that means their children simply learn to perpetuate that misery by foisting it onto the next hapless generation or take drastic actions to end their misery or the parents themselves are neglected in old age by their children, three all too plausible scenarios. As the saying goes, misery loves company.

https://www.quora.com/I-am-an-Indian-in-US-I-want-my-kid-to-become-a-doctor-but-he-shows-undue-interest-in-arts-Initially-it-was-just-scribbling-but-now-it%E2%80%99s-like-IT-How-do-I-discourage-my-6-year-old-kid-from-arts-paintings-and-dinosaurs/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala