This comparative study explores how university students in Poland and China negotiate familial expectations regarding career choices. Drawing on 65 in-depth interviews and a narrative prompt method, the research identifies four strategies: negotiated compliance, filial acquiescence, assertive self-actualization, and contextual adaptation. While Chinese students tend to emphasize duty, stability, and parental authority, Polish students highlight emotional autonomy and dialogical compromise. These patterns are mediated by geography, gender, and parental education, with urban youth and those from highly educated families demonstrating greater agency. The study expands Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital by showing how intergenerational influence is negotiated within distinct national moral economies. It also contributes to youth sociology by illustrating how macro-level transformations—post-socialist transitions, labor market insecurity, and educational diversification— are refracted in micro-level family dynamics. The findings provide a cross-cultural account of how young people balance personal aspirations and familial obligations under changing socio-economic conditions.