Pressured is applied to make people fit into the working machine. We're okay with our kids being farmed because we want them to have good money and as good or better a life than ourselves.

My dad wanted to go into art school, but he went into engineering instead, got a visa and moved our entire family to the US. I wanted to go into journalism, but my sister kept telling me I needed to think about my future family, so I went into Computer Science (I'm also in my 30s with no family .. so, yea).

How about instead of telling women they should go for higher paying jobs, we tell men it's okay to go after your dreams. How about we find a way to support artists so they're not selling everything under iTunes/Google/Amazon at a 30% cut!

There is a much bigger problem here of people taking jobs they know they'll probably be unhappy with because they need the money. We are a factory pipeline of misery.

She didn't ask if she has to learn math at all, but if she has to like math.

I think this is a valid point, but a kid would have to be pretty aloof these days to not recognize the expectations being placed on them. I have memories as early as Kindergarten and Pre-K, where it was really clear that adults wanted us to know that boys weren't better than girls.

(as a bit of an aside, I always wished at that time that people wouldn't push the issue. Bringing it to the forefront forced the topic, and one group of kids would "win" the argument at the expense of the other kids.)