Considerate father lets daughter choose between medical and engineering

Bangladeshi father revolutionises deshi parenting as he lets his daughter choose between medical or engineering as her future career. While the rest of the parents of his generation are busy doing what parents do best – impose their own aspirations on their laboratory guinea pigs, Asgar Alam broke the taboo and did the impossible. He gave his daughter, Raisa, a choice. Raisa, a talented aspiring musician, can now choose to pursue either medicine or engineering thanks to her thoughtful father.

"I don't believe in conventional parenting," Asgar Alam talked about the inspirations behind his bold choice, "Growing up, I was exceptional at cricket. My coach said I was a prodigy. Playing cricket made me genuinely happy and so, I gave up on it and pursued my father's ambitions of being a government employee. Later on, when I became a father, I was adamant that my child is not going to struggle the way I did. All my life, I had to live by my father's only choice. But not my child! Rather, her father is going to have two choices for her and she gets to pick whichever one she wants among the two! No pressure whatsoever."

"Pavlov's experimentation with dogs in his laboratories was my initial approach to parenting," continued Mr Asgar, "I tried Pavlovian conditioning with my elder son. Since he was a little kid, I kept saying that my son will grow up to be an engineer. Over his entire childhood, I planted this information in his head. Just like every other Bengali millennial, he didn't know what to do with his life growing up and that's when Pavlovian conditioning came in. He fell for our meticulously planned deception, responded positively to our stimulations when the time came and willingly chose engineering. Now, he can't even blame us because he thinks it was his choice! Sure, he's been chronically depressed the past five years but he's not any other depressed millennial. He's a depressed millennial with an engineering degree!"

Meanwhile, Raisa expresses her sincere gratitude for her father's compassion, "Unlike other children, I cannot blame my parents whenever I mess up in my academics because now, they have the 'I gave you a choice' card up their sleeves. But I must admit, not many kids of my generation can afford to choose the stream of crippling depression they want to cater to. As a Bangladeshi Idol finalist in my teen years, I couldn't choose whether I wanted to have anxiety attacks in engineering or choose medical school and be too sleep deprived to have anxiety attacks in the first place."

However, after months of hesitation, Raisa chose engineering as she wants to focus on her recently developed interest in theoretical physics and pursue higher education in the field, "I intend to join one of the best research laboratories in the world when I graduate. I've always been eager about the concept of the multiverse. With the latest technologies, I want to prove the existence of multiverse, create a portal and travel to a parallel universe where I get to take my life decisions for myself."

"Woah! Even we didn't dare to create a fictional multiverse that ridiculous," said Sam Raimi, director of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

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