My father was a chemistry dropout banker and he hated his job. Not because he was bad at it but because he knew he had so much potential in the subject he was most passionate about. So like every other middle-class parent, he bestowed his dream of pursuing a STEM career to me.
But unlike typical parents who enforce a science curriculum by means of parental rights, my dad manipulated my young mind with all the fascinating stories about the stars and galaxies (apparently he took an astronomy class in college). He used life stories of Alfred Noble, Madam Courie as bedtime stories.