LOL, I didn't realize you graduated and have a career in art until you posted. That being the case, I say, you should teach in Asia at some point at one of the fancy art schools for a bit :P.
Back on topic and a 4:00 a.m. ramble, Art for Art sake also didn't put parents minds at ease, and the ideal of being successful at art by focusing on the craft not on the coin also doesn't read well. So I told my dad, the art for art sake argument first being a 11 yearold, having middle-class entitlement issues, and hearing from many comic-artists, it’s about the craft or just making art at the time.
After some hard criticisms from peers, teachers, and the janitor (cool guy), when I was a teen, I was ready to give up, and I told my Dad in a long car ride back home, you're right, there's no need for art (my desire to live on this planet was gone, and I was ready to live, work, and die)... With great concern, he corrected me on his argument. He told me that if that was true, then people wouldn't watch movies, he told me the value of art is to make people feel things, sometimes think, but mostly feel something especially when they need to escape their own lives, have a little break before having to deal with their own problems. As I felt I had something to live for; he then said, how do you make money? 2 steps forward 2 steps back becuase I still needed to perfect the craft in order to try and sell the product at that stage of my life, and he wouldn't let it go until I won the argument at age 26. Punchline: He a was corperate accountant and lawyer who always wanted to be an actor.
I became a teacher because other creators who didn’t make if after college (primarly writters) said this is what they did before the big break. I also did it, because I was looking for people who didn’t know how to this for a living, kids like me. Plus, I definitely wanted better parenting skills then my dad.
Still, it could have been worse, one mom beat my friend in college for pursuing an art career. She had it though, 4 kids to raise, and staying off of welfare was always her goal, she is proud, pragmatic, stubborn and happy her son got to go to college. But when he decided on art as a major to make comics and video game chracters, and he gave her the art for art sake argument, I was asked to walk out the door, and soon heard him being hit. She screamed at him, then hit him, I walked slowly away becuase I wanted to help him, but it was his choice to live there, right? Later, I would see the bruises on his arms, and was told his very frugal mom, threw away his pencils and inks, and I wasn’t allowed near his house again.