All of the professions you describe require mathematical and technological skills to make them happen. Even farming requires higher technical knowledge than ever before (seen a combine lately? They have GPS guidance, yield prediction software, crop and soil moisture sensors..etc.).
The bottom end jobs that used to allow our kids to avoid STEM subjects are disappearing: off shoring, robotics, illegal labor, etc. are killing the fabrication/ manufacturing sector jobs and pretty much everything else.
If you care about your children’s future, help them, push them, tutor them if necessary but above all get them educated in today’s math, science, and computer skills.
Or just be prepared to keep them at home forever.
“The bottom end jobs that used to allow our kids to avoid STEM subjects”
I have to laugh at your words above!
All the professions I described have always required special technical skills and advanced subject knowledge.To advance in those fields, has always meant continuous upgrading of skills and knowledge.
It also requires an ability to apply all that knowledge!
I’m certain you must have experienced faulty GPS guidance, software glitches,or sporadically unreliable sensors.
Did your tech support/engineering staff let the entire company shut down for days, while analyzing the glitch, or did your facility manager just reboot the system and carry on?
The entire world benefits from the research efforts of savants in science, technology, engineering and math.
All the STEM research in the world is wasted, unless it can eventually be applied by generalists, to actual physical functions.
Basic science, technology, engineering and math has always been taught in western societies, who value education for all.
I would no more force my child towards becoming a scientist if she had exhibited no aptitude for the specialty, than I would encourage her to become a dancer, if she had no interest in that direction.
I did make certain she was exposed to every possible field and to understand that everyone is capable of expertise at something, it is merely a matter of finding your own niche, and building upon it.