Your partner's professional employment also sets the tone.

Try to imagine what it would be like to marry a person who has a variety of professions. Exaggerate the circumstances in order to make them more clear in your mind.

For example, picture the corners in your future home with an electrician. They are filled with wires, pliers, light switches and other electrical supplies. Try it again, but this time with a plumber: Your house is now filled with wrenches, drain snakes, and pipes of different lengths and diameters. A talmid chacham is likely to fill the home with books and papers.

True, this exaggerated way of looking at the situation is unfair. Many people do not bring home their work or supplies. Others may be very neat and keep their tools in a secluded part of the house. At worst, you might have to clean up after your spouse, but then the tools of the trade will remain out of sight.

However, this is one way to determine whether this type of profession suits you.

Impact of role models

You can use the same procedure when selecting a parent for your children. The working parent will be one of their role models, and you can influence what you want them to see. They will model their own tools after the parent's tools of the trade. If the father plays with pipes, then the children will also play with pipes.

If your future spouse is a plumber, then your children may well be friendly with the children of other plumbers. The situation will be similar with electricians or talmidei chachamim.

However, let us clarify that this is not entirely the case. You are likely to know of father and child enterprises in which the child continues in the father's "tradition" and ultimately takes over the business. However, you are equally likely to know many grown people who rebelled and distanced themselves from their parent's line of work. Perhaps they may know so much about the parent’s negative experiences within his position that they decided not to get involved in that line of work; perhaps there are other reasons.

Your own children are also likely to follow the parent's line of work or to select what they consider to be the opposite. By evaluating your future spouse's line of work you may also have a strong effect on your children's future form of employment.

You might feel that a great deal of stress has been placed on the parent's profession and that you are interested in other aspects of your child’s life and development.

That is of course true, and other articles in this dating section do indeed relate to other issues. However, it is important to have a measurable frame of reference in order to predict the impact on your child with some certainty. Whether the child takes after or rebels against the parent, his future will always reflect the parent in some way.

Impact of the empty nest syndrome

As you grow older, you will have to face the period of time when it is just the two of you again. The issue of compatibility will be raised again. What will your married life be like then?

In general, it may be difficult to predict what the two of you will be like. However, although the parents' professions may change, they are usually likely to remain similar in many ways to the professions for which they prepared before marrying. Plumbers are likely to work with their hands until they retire. Talmidei chachamim are likely to be involved in Jewish traditional study and learning well beyond retirement age.

Is the impact always predictable?

No, of course not. Some people do make radical changes in their jobs or positions over the course of time. You probably know of some examples of people who, like Rabbi Akiva, began their professional career in one line of work and ended with a very different line of work.

However, a plumber who changes professions is not likely to become a talmid chacham. The plumber’s contacts and sources of influence are likely to be people who work in allied or similar trades, such as construction or electrical work. Similarly, a talmid chacham may become a teacher or a rabbi, but he is not likely to become a plumber.

True, life is filled with surprises. A person who was pressured into joining a certain profession against his will may make a major change later in life. Listen carefully for hints about employment changes that may take place in the future when you go on your dates.