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I once met a consultant whose job was to find places for affluent children in the best nurseries and schools.
我曾见过一名咨询师，她的工作是为有钱人家的孩子找到一流幼儿园和学校的入学名额。
One client on her list had mapped out his son’s life with precision.
在她的名单上有一名客户，已经为他儿子的人生做好了精密规划。
The boy would attend Cambridge university before embarking on a career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank.
这名男孩将入读剑桥大学，然后在德意志银行开始他的投行职业生涯。
The child was six months old.
这个孩子当时才6个月大。
The father’s hothouse ambition seemed absurd when I first heard about it.
头一回听说，觉得这位父亲的温室培养野心似乎很荒谬。
Who looks at their baby’s chubby face, hears their gurgling laughter and thinks nascent spreadsheet monkey? A year on, it seems even more ludicrous.
谁会看着他们小宝宝胖乎乎的脸蛋儿，听着他们咯咯的笑声，心里想着这是未来的Excel狗？一年过去了，这事看起来更可笑了。
Deutsche, after all, is cutting 9,000 jobs.
毕竟，德意志银行正裁员9000个职位。
Yet, I confess to premature thoughts about my own son’s future career.
然而，我承认对我儿子未来的职业也有开始得过早的想法。
When he started school this term I experienced a frisson of panic as he set his Start-rite feet on the institutional conveyor belt.
他从本学期开始入学，当他穿着童鞋的双脚踏上教育机器的传送带，我曾因恐慌而颤抖。
My job is to write about work and careers, and I am assailed by daily predictions of widespread automation and mass unemployment.
我的工作是撰写关于工作和职业的文章，每一天都被自动化普及和大规模失业的预言而困扰。
I find myself wondering how best to prepare a child for the future.
我发现自已一直在思考帮孩子为未来做准备的最好方法。
There must be a sunnier path to pursue than stockpiling tinned foods and signing up for survival courses?
一定可以找到比囤积罐头食品和报求生课程更光明的道路吧？
Most mothers and fathers start from their own experiences — professions and trades run in families.
大多数父母都从自己的经验出发——家族行当和生意。
A study by Facebook this year found people within a family are proportionally more likely to choose the same occupation.
Facebook今年的一项研究发现同一家族中的人选择同样职业的比例更高。
Yet the research also found that while a son who has a father in the military is five times more likely to enter the military, just one in four sons of a military professional does so.
然而该研究也发现虽然父亲当兵则儿子当兵的可能性会增加5倍，但军事人员的儿子中只有四分之一会从军。
In other words, most children strike their own path.
换句话说，大多数孩子走出了自己的路。
This is good news for my son.
这对我的儿子来说是个好消息。
I love journalism, but I would not encourage him into an industry convulsed by existential anguish, frequently described as being in terminal decline as advertising evaporates.
我热爱新闻业，但我不会鼓励他进入一个因生存痛苦而痉挛、因广告业消失而经常被描述为正在经历永久衰退的行业。
Who knows if humans will be journalists in 20 years? Automation is displacing jobs in fields from manufacturing to law firms to banks.
谁知道20年后是否还有人类新闻记者？自动化正在取代从制造业到律师事务所和银行这些行业的工作。
My trade could well be next.
我的职业也许就是下一个被取代的。
I am hardly alone in worrying about my child following in my footsteps.
担心子女会走家长老路的人绝不止我一个。
Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, told an interviewer: The first, most visceral instinct you have as a parent is you want to protect your children and politics is a very rough business you know.
英国前副首相尼克.克莱格(Nick Clegg)在一次采访中说：作为家长的第一个最内在的本能是想要保护你的孩子，而你知道，政治是一个非常艰苦的行业。
Accountants, shop assistants and doctors would say the same thing.
会计师、营业员和医生都会说同样的话。
In any case, most children would rather die — to quote teenagers the world over — than be like their mother or father.
无论如何，大多数孩子都宁死（用青少年的话来说就是世界末日）不与父亲或母亲一样。
Besides encouraging or discouraging them into their own lines of work, how else should parents prepare children for employment? Teachers and businesses urge young people to future-proof themselves by studying science, technology, engineering or maths.
除了鼓励或阻止他们进入自己的行业，家长们还能如何帮助子女做好就业准备呢？教师和企业敦促年轻人学好科学、技术、工程或数学来保障自己的未来。
Toy manufacturers and entrepreneurs have picked up on the stem trend.
玩具制造商和企业家们已经搭上这股主流之风。
Christmas stockings will be stuffed with toys marketed on a promise of turning little Poppy or Johnny into the next Mark Zuckerberg.
圣诞袜里将会塞满那些被宣传为可以把小波比(Poppy)或者小强尼(Jonny)培养成下一个马克.扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)的礼物。
But I am not convinced everyone can or should be a coder.
但我不相信每个人都能或者都应该成为程序员。
As Martin Ford, author of The Rise of the Robots, pointed out, routine software development is being automated everywhere.
正如《机器人的崛起》(The Rise of the Robots)一书的作者马丁.福特(Martin Ford)指出的，常规软件的开发到处都在实现自动化。
Perhaps parents should be directed instead.
也许反而是家长们应该接受引导。
Like Chris Puckett and his parents.
正如克里斯.帕克特((Chris Puckett)和他的父母。
This year I met Mr Puckett, who has made a fantastic career and vast amounts of money as an esports commentator, hosting competitive video gaming at live events and on screen.
今年我见过帕克特，他作为电子竞技评论员，在现场和在电视上主持视频竞技游戏，从事着一份绝佳的职业，收入也绝佳。
His father is a paper salesman, his mother, a receptionist at the local church.
他的父亲是纸业推销员，母亲是当地教会的接待员。
They worried about his decision to pack in his degree to pursue what seemed to them a flaky career.
他们曾为帕克特决定放弃学位而从事在他们看来不靠谱的职业而担心。
To allay their fears, Mr Puckett invited his parents to tournaments.
为了消除他们的恐慌，帕克特邀请父母观看了比赛。
Now they are his biggest cheerleaders.
现在，他们是他最铁杆的啦啦队员。
Some take it further than the Pucketts.
还有些人比帕克特更进一步。
Marc Freedman, founder of a social enterprise that advocates second careers in later working life, reports growing numbers of parents following their children into their chosen careers.
倡导人们在职业生涯后期开展第二职业的社交企业创始人马克.弗里德曼(Marc Freedman)表示，越来越多的家长跟随子女进入他们选的职业。
Amid the gloom about the future of work, I found this cheering.
在有关职业未来的悲观气氛之中，我发现了值得欢呼的地方。
If, to mangle LP Hartley’s quote, the future is a foreign country — they do things differently there, then maybe future generations are our best guide.
篡改一下作家哈特利(LP Hartley)的名言，如果未来是一个异域国度——他们那里的做事方法不同——那么也许未来一代是我们最好的向导。
So, with that in mind, I pledge to support my son in his ambition to be a space policeman.
所以考虑到这一点，我发誓要支持我儿子做太空警察的雄心。
Who knows, perhaps I will follow him?
谁知道呢，或许我还会跟随他的脚步呢？
