Reinforcing someone's autonomy is just as critical as encouraging and loving them. The disconnect is that socially speaking, we live in an environment that values the establishment of hierarchies of power over one another. People will restrict and sabotage a loved one's empowerment and autonomy. Even when they mean well, the repercussions can be devastating.
It's necessary to ask yourself, before you react, if what you're about to say is restricting someone's justifiable attempt at creating more autonomy and empowerment.
Someone's decision to not go down a "normalized" career path, and instead pick something that won't suck their soul isn't a great moment to respond with the usual trivialities of white collar benefits. Most people know what's in-store with a high paying job. The mirage of "with a better job comes a better life" is preached to us 24-fuckin-7. You think we'd forget so quickly?
Most people don't need to be told what all the options are. They just want some goddamn love and support.
How someone reacts to your decision to change a facet of your life says a lot about their values.
I wouldn't do a lot of what my friends have and eventually will do. And I'm not even talking about ethics, just the normal aesthetics of life. I don't want to skydive. But if you want to, then fuckin go nuts! You've got my support (just not my participation lol).
Most things mean nothing outside our realities. There's no ethical reason not to get a tattoo. Plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't, and who fuckin cares if they don't? What I have a problem with is when people try to moralize actions that are obviously not up for moral discussion. Make a big deal out of trivial decisions.
To make matters worse, these misplaced moralizers will buttress their "concerns" with unethical reasonings and excuses. Ageism, ableism, sexism, and classism are some common ones. Watching a parent engage with their child is all you need to know about how people haphazardly moralize subjective issues to fit their perverted agendas.
It's a hard discussion to have. It's uncomfortable; no one likes having their parenting styles questioned or judged. But children, being growing humans with needs and desires, will communicate their preferences. If they're downplayed, mocked, or discounted it influences not only their confidence and self-perception, but their relationship with the parent. That most children rebel against their parents isn't some essentialist notion. It is a consequence of an authoritarian society that treats its younger members as non-citizens (i.e. ageism, which is then interconnected with racism, classism, fatphobia, ableism, patriarchal values, and so on). Restricting someone's autonomy, especially at an early age, is restricting their ability to speak up for themselves and others.
Parenting is only a microcosm of this authoritarian social behavior. It rears its head in relationships (both platonic and more "serious" non-platonic ones), at the workplace, in families, and so on. Any social environment where people operate on dominant (white supremacist bourgeois) values you'll see this shit.
Concepts like responsibility, professionalism, and other "adulting" platitudes also serve to knock down our attempts at self-knowledge and self-confidence.
Individualism, as is broadly seen in Amerikan culture, is malicious collectivism disguised as empowerment. It reproduces exploitation and makes complicit actors. The individualism I'm referencing (in terms of real empowerment and autonomy) encourages community and interpersonal connectiviness and love. I wouldn't even say it is individualism seeing as that word highlights the wrong characteristics of what I'm discussing. Our personal betterment should only encourage and reinforce others' betterment. We are only free if all are free, and so on.
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