I (24M) think my cousin (18M) is in danger of throwing his potential away. Should I talk to him or let him make his own choices?

Hi,

First time poster here. Bear with me as I have a bad habit of being long winded.

To elaborate more on the subject though, my cousin “Mark” is a great kid and graduating senior. Smart, driven, kind, and a great work ethic. He’s taken AP courses, gotten every certification his school offers from Masonry to MS Office to OSHA, worked an internship for a plastics company nearby, and has generally excelled in school. He’s graduating in June and last time we met up (Christmas) before everything shut down, he was really excited about potentially going to a state school for an engineering major but was also toying with going to community college to become a tool and dye maker or a welder or some hands on career. He really enjoys working with his hands. Recently, I was talking with our Great Aunt and she said that he’s graduating in a couple weeks and hasn’t even applied to community colleges let alone the State School. With his financial situation, extracurricular, and grades, this school probably would’ve been near free for him. CC definitely would’ve been free.

Now I know college isn’t for everyone, and I don’t care if he changed his mind about the engineering field he was thinking of taking. But the way my Great Aunt made it sound was that my grandma and his mom (he lives with both and they’re relatively poor) are either actively discouraging him from going to this State School or the local CC or at the very least not encouraging him to pursue anything more now that’s he’s graduated. They’ve suggested he goes to work at one of the manufacturing companies around us saying they make good money with no college needed.

The problem is that they don’t really make good money. They make okay money and the sheer amount of overtime they have to work makes it seem like good money. My dad worked for several of these companies his whole life and while we were okay financially, he was also pulling 50-70 hour weeks on third shift w/ the ever present threat of layoffs the second business got slow and he regrets missing so much of life and really pushed me to not go down that path myself.

I’ve only achieved moderate success in my life as a paper salesperson mainly due to my own lack of ambition but I know this kid could become incredibly successful at whatever he does, and ultimately if he’s happy working on a manufacturing line then so be it, but I fear that my family’s discouragement is convincing him to settle for the same barely avoiding crippling poverty lifestyle that most of my family has had for generations rather than him actually losing interest in those previously mentioned careers and I think that would just be a huge waste of what he’s capable of doing.

He’s always kind of looked up to me, so I’m thinking he might heed my advice moreso than my Great Aunt’s. And while I know it’s possible that he is still figuring it out, I’d like to sit him down soon and talk to him about what his plans are and try to convince him to really apply his potential. But I’m not sure how to approach the conversation or if I even should approach it. Maybe I should just let him live his life and make his own choices without me trying to get in the way? I was hoping for advice on how to encourage him or advice on whether I should stay out of it.

Tldr: Cousin is wicked smart but seems to be about to throw away all his potential because our grandma and his mom don’t value education. Should I talk to him about it? If so, how?

Submitted May 27, 2020 at 01:47PM by LynxRocket https://ift.tt/2X8cHNZ