True, a lot of options go away, but not everything. When I was 18, my dad died, and I (the youngest) was an adult, so my mom went back to school and became a nurse. She’d been a school secretary for most of my childhood (and ran a childcare center out of our house prior to that), so it was basically her chance to follow her own career path. She became an Nurse Practitioner, and has been doing that for the past 20 years (she’s semi-retired). She turns 70 next year.
True, a lot of options go away, but not everything. When I was 18, my dad died, and I (the youngest) was an adult, so my mom went back to school and became a nurse. She’d been a school secretary for most of my childhood (and ran a childcare center out of our house prior to that), so it was basically her chance to follow her own career path. She became an Nurse Practitioner, and has been doing that for the past 20 years (she’s semi-retired). She turns 70 next year.