Did your parents ever worry that you would never amount to much?

I was watching this interview the other day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RKUUTLLDQc

If you want to find out how Jonah Hill got his big break by making prank phone calls for Dustin Hoffman it’s pretty interesting, but there was another part of it that stuck with me:

Late in the interview Jonah reveals that his dad was seriously concerned that he’d ever amount to anything, or even be able to support himself. As a parent I can utterly relate to that concern; even though my kids seem bright and are growing up with privileged opportunities I still worry (the end of the world due to climate change aside) a lot about whether they’ll be ‘successful’ or ‘happy’ (those are in inverted commas because I have no idea what they mean) and what I can do to help.

But then the Jonah Hill thing is quite liberating: apparently you can believe your kid will be a pointless fuckup a mere couple of years before they become a massively successful writer and movie star. I suppose if that’s the case we can all be more OK with our children’s potential to do well or badly because we really have no idea.

(By the way, for the purposes of this post I asked my parents if they ever worried about whether I’d amount to much. Although they said they didn’t I certainly had my doubts, mainly around the time I got sacked from Y&R. But it all turned out fine (so far).)

Did you ever think your life was going to head down the pan before it headed gratifyingly in the opposite direction? Or did you waste your massive potential somehow? Are you still concerned you might spend some of your future living in a cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge?