ב''ה, not sure why I'm bothering and wish I could skip the weird stuff, but I'm real familiar with this dynamic even if I didn't have the athletics and really only had a few good years before reaching academic burnout.
So, let me shpiel on the weird stuff a bit, there's a lot afoot with situations like this, but as much as religion made the world one way or another and a lot of people are reacting to what they've heard of it and its influence on some level.. whatever is written down as having gone on in Eden is supposed to be forgiven after 4 generations at Sinai, but that whole pain in childbirth and man (generally read to at least specifically include males) being made to toil can't be undone for whatever reason or not until the whole plan of religion runs its course or something. This obviously leaves everyone a bit WTF if they've heard any of it and moreso if they've heard most of the scribes at the time were probably males.
Now, one way or another, not saying everyone doesn't suck and didn't somehow get worse when faced with the sudden neoconservative renaissance in global leadership for a decent while we're still living under while the alternatives stay increasingly wacky and ad absurdum while the equally ad absurdum and wacky side can at least point to various scriptures and Israel and 'it's always been this way at least since Rome and y'all like Rome, right?'..
Nonetheless I think some of the flipped bits in everyone faced with ten more years of this shit really amplified a certain instinct particularly on the more female side of things to keep the males busy because they're 'sort of a threat' in the Louis CK bit way.
Now, aside from taking a moment to acknowledge I'm just assuming you're male because of football and congratulations on being good at it either way, pretty sure your mom is female and all this just kind of piles on to a certain Boomer codified Dr. Spock era of parenting that can just never die now that assumes the point is to pressure the kids until they rebel and move out ("maturity," "adventures," leaving your parents' tent to start a family in the particularly Biblical narrative) or at least pay off; what parents signed up for, no way to lose on their end.
So I've particularly got an axe to grind with this because it's popped up through my own family and from additional randos repeatedly in my life including a certain joy in creating challenges/being the obstacle, sometimes out of misandrist revenge on G-d/just doing the Lord's work directly stated or sometimes just out of instinct and glee.. but since there ain't much for services for guys except for joining some type of clergy and if I go with the Jewish 'right' one that'd leave me with, let's say the student loan game the combined forces of everyone created is particularly a headache there..
Yeah, it's weird. But before by the way we're different religions and mom's is obligated to fuck up mine really came up in my own family, everyone was high achieving Boomers except for my recently created self, that don't want to be a bad parent per society so gotta keep pushing and wheedling thing was a thing, for me that turned into catching crap and then catching crap with a 'gotta double it so your mom isn't angry with me' from dad, and at some point that turns into the CPTSD bullshit of always being fatigued and knowing if it's really important the screaming will start so better catch as much shut eye as possible before the screaming starts, and perhaps that's a good way to become an underachiever until the mighty dollar takes the same role, but it is pretty miserable in general before adding on the anti-Semitism.
So, that's pretty weird but best I can do for words of caution with it all. Meanwhile there is a saying that women get more confident with age, and this may apply to everyone, but combined with a certain lack of insight (and for some reason my bad family trip includes anxiety, anorexia, maybe dementia, and constantly insisting everyone belongs in therapy or a psych ward while also unfortunately a lot of abuse from that industry that somehow doesn't register though you'll never hear the end of it if sitting down to listen) it's, ahem, a challenge.
A word of caution on academia is, it depends what corner of academia you really pursue while chasing a meaningful life worth living, but if this is a dynamic you're tired of, certain corners just particularly preserve the dynamic as The Game / Cost of Doing Business. So, there's probably plenty of fields and majors that have concrete deliverables and everyone just chews on each other in pursuit of actual goals, as can still get weird between the mad scientists and all that, but if you look at the more nebulous stuff like debate and philosophy the more gleefully make work side of it can show in less pleasant ways unless you're able to tolerate that People Are Just Like This, Moreso Than Ever and rise above it to gladhand with it and call out when you're not feeling it, as may or may not be permitted depending what version you're getting.
Anyway, as much as I can't believe I've gotten my version, including seeking help amplifying the conflicts because ain't that the business, if you want to feel sympathy add on 'who's praying for my family to be dumbasses?,' yet it seems particularly hard to overcome because it's always subtly been an instinct in humanity (personal ego, get the kids and particularly the males working and out of the house and Maximizing Value and Prestige in general) and culture and economics have amplified it from every possible angle in recent history.
[The other thing to have sympathy for is, of course it's often rooted in past generations of abuse because Getting The Kids Out Of The House / Maximizing Production isn't a recent invention as the Biblical stuff shows, but when it's literally ruining your health because C'mon All-Nighters Are Your Culture, call bullshit on it if it's really not sustainable.]
It's kind of an unfortunate grumble to end on, but what it took until my 20s to notice was, when someone's made their whole life Parenting to the exclusion of the real world, and aging brain kicks in with that confidence untethered by reality because reality is scary and anxiety runs in the family, you get someone who can't read the instructions on a gas pump but can scream about why you haven't sent out a hundred resumes, and that's just kind of a bad and tragic scene that seems to be increasingly common particularly as fixed income retirement gets more threatened and everything else dumb in the world.
