Your family can have a plan for your life and still love you when you write a different one.

Parents build a picture of your future out of their own hopes and fears, and it is usually made with care even when it does not fit you. Disappointing that picture can feel like risking the whole relationship, which is why so many people enrol in a course they never wanted. Almost always the love was never conditional on the plan. What they grieve is their version ending, not you.

If you are heading somewhere they did not imagine, tell them early and give them the reasoning, not only the decision. Allow them time to catch up. Keep turning up at dinner while they do.