What would you have done with your life if things had been different?

I think that I have in many ways been extremely lucky in my life, but I too felt manipulated as a youngster when important decisions were being made and they were not ones that I would necessarily have made myself looking back.

I was pushed on a year at grammar school and took all my Os and As a year early. I was not asked whether this is what I wanted to do. This was a big mistake as I went to uni too young - I really was not mature enough to benefit fully from it, and felt very intimidated by all the other students who were older, more mature and seemed incredibly sophisticated to me - I felt really out of my depth. I think I would have settled a lot quicker and enjoyed it a lot more if I had been older.

The pushing on narrowed my choices somewhat and I felt that I missed out on a broader education.

I wanted to study music but the class that I was in was purely academic - Latin (yes - I did study it and enjoyed it) and the rest. Not having the chance to do O-level music was a huge gap for me, since this is where my heart really lay; and not having enough resources to continue with the piano was a wrench.

But I did study singing and this has been what my life has really been about - not the qualifications that I got or the career I went on to have. I now run singing workshops and a choir; and I also left my career at the age of 50 to study photography and worked in that for many years alongside the singing.

I was very careful not to dictate to my children what their choices should be and let them follow their hearts. They only have one life and they need to do what they feel is right for them.

But I was lucky to have an education and not to feel held back by being a woman.

Interesting, isn't it, that so many of us ploughed ahead (or were pushed) into the unknown? And there was always that dichotomy between achievement and female stereotypes! Shades of "The Bell Jar"?

It clearly took a lot of us quite a while to become the stroppy assertive women that we are today; but we got there, as mishap has just shown. And aren't we good at it? But our experiences, I think, have taught us compassion and empathy. I hope! to us all.

mshap did you say you enjoyed Latin? Go wash your mouth out!

What's wrong with Latin, jeni? I had a brilliant teacher and really liked it - had her for Greek too when I took that up. Did both for a year at University and then specialised in English. One's attitude to a subject is inevitably shaped by the quality of the teacher and the teaching. No mouthwash for me!

Loved Latin -and studied Greek too up to "O" level - I tried "A" Level but the lure of French was too great. But went all the way with Latin. Now Anglo Saxon almost defeated me..

Hated it. Lousy teacher, lousy language and he used to throw the chalk duter at you. This gave me hay fever and I would start sneezing. He then thought I was taking the mick! I spent more time standing outside the door than in class. I got 23% for o level.!

I liked Latin, despite the teacher, and was pleased when DS did too. I have found it incredibly useful since. I don't think it's a great regret but I do feel that I was nudged, if not pushed, in certain directions. Looking back I realise there were several things I wanted to do but the parents said NO and I accepted it. As a student I was financially dependent on them and had been brought up to accept that they (or to be precise - Mum) had the last word. My own 3 are very assertive people and I am no shrinking violet, but because of upbringing and culture accepted at 18 that they 'knew best'!

Has anyone tried one of those Rossetta Stone language courses?

I wondered if that would be away for me to learn latin?

I always wanted to learn hieroglyphics as Egyptology was what I really wanted to. Nowadays I suppose I would have done forensic paleoanthropology!
Decided at age 10 the only way I'd earn enough lolly to keep me was by going into law or medicine!
What a mercenary child I was! I don't think I've changed much either!

Jeni my SIL's mother is an Egyptologist - her house is full of artefacts and Egyptian decor, and her car's number plates read EGYPT - she lives and breathes all things Egyptian, and takes groups out there to study tombs, pyramids and mummies several times a year - doesn't do digs nowadays, but has in the past.

I've been wracking my brains trying to remember the books(s) that have a forensic paleoanthropologist as the main character. Reading Kathy Reikes at the moment - Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthroplogist - really interesting books.

carol I love reichs books and bones on tv. Are you thinking off Cornell? Or is it cor well. Scarpetta series?

Have you tried the 'Amelia Peabody' series by e. peters? They are telly funny!

Read one of them some time ago - I must get hold of another one. As I remember she was some sort of a sleuth. Thanks for reminding me Jeni.

Jeni it's Patricia Cornwell that writes the Kay Scarpetta novels.

I missed out the n

No Jeni not Kay Scarpetta - I've got a few Patricia Cornwell books, too. I'll probably wake up at 3 am and remember!

I've remembered! A couple of Tess Gerritson's books include a paleoanthropologist. One might be The Bone Garden - not sure, as I gave my copy away.

I often wonder what I would have done differently. I was 'guided' into teaching by my school - main reason being that I was good with children - no choice big sister to three! I wish I had resisted having decisions made for me and that I had gone to university rather than teachers' training college. I did teach for over thirty years nad went on to do an OU degree so it all worked out ok I suppose. But.....not sure teaching was the right choice.
This is my first post - just joined Gransnet.

Welcome auntteaser! Hope you enjoy your time here among these great women but beware getting addicted! There are loads of other things I should be doing, but here I am tapping away.
I've thought about this quite a bit. The biggest effect on my life I think was my parents decision not to allow me to take up the grammar school place I was offered after the 11+ but to send me to a convent school. I do think that the whole course of my life has been affected by this. However, who knows? If I had gone to university at 18 instead of doing an OU degree at 30 with 5 children there is a strong chance that I would have played and not got a degree. What I would really have liked to do was to get an English Lit degree and then been a writer or done something in the theatre. These are both life long passions but not something that would have been allowed to do by my chartered accountant father. Like many others I wish that I had stood up to him and made my own choices. But life was not like that in the late 50's/early 60's for most of us and I initially ended up in a bank before getting married at 21.
I have had an eventful and interesting life, unconventional in my parents terms, lived in Africa, worked as a social worker, had five wonderful children and now seven just-as-wonderful grandchildren. I am now starting to write my life story. I live alone, have good friends and all in all I am happy and contented with my life and proud of what I have achieved. So onwards and upwards! (I really must go and put the washing on).

Hello auntteaser and welcome! Like seventimesfive I really should be up and doing, but there's always the temptation just to have a quick look at GN, then get hooked into all the chat. Right, I'm off. In a minute. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Funny you should bring it up what you would have due because I have been thinking of how I record what I have actually done, like a biography... sort of and I am not quite sure how to start - any ideas?

Welcome SusietheGreat! I have used two books I found on Amazon useful to start me off - Write Your Life Story and Times of our Lives by Michael Oke. They trigger off all sorts of memories and stopped me from feeling that whatever I wrote had to be perfect (family conditioning!)

I wish I'd trained as a nurse but as a teenager I would faint at the sight of blood and join in with the vomitous ones!
Fast forward 25 years and I work frontline in the ambulance service and can cope with vomit and blood. Have finally found my niche and love it.

I would have been more careful NOT to get pregnant and ruin my college course.
Then I wouldn't have married him.
(....negative!)
I should have got into horticulture and then I would have known more while I still could physically do it !
Or I should have learned more history and I wouldn't be envying the experts on Time Team
Or I should have gone to art school, maybe.

Welcome auntteaser and Susiethegreat - try not to get addicted - Gransnet is a real waster of time!

I agree with Seventimesfive that most of us did what we were told in 50/60s and I don't remember giving a lot of thought to what I wanted to do - I just did what my parents (or my mother!) thought best. Having a daughter who got to grammar school, and thereby earned the "right" to wear the dreadful hat, my mum was one up on the neighbours and therefore happy (for a while). In fact, I would probably have been much better going to the secondary modern and gaining some practical skills (eg shorthand and typing) because I was bullied and very unhappy at school and couldn't wait to leave!

I have, I discovered eventually, great organisational skills, can cope well under stress and have good interpersonal skills. Or, did those things come about because of the way my life went!