What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

When my youngest son was about 3, people would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. His very honest answer, after giving it plenty of thought, was that he wanted to grow up to be a squirrel or an Indian. Since he was my fourth child and I had learned a thing or two by that time, I grinned a very pleased grin and told him both of those would make great choices. It did cause some concern as I drove through my tree-lined neighborhood where apparently squirrels try to commit suicide by car. I couldn't exactly kill a future relative.I'm sure if he had been one of my first children, I would have dashed his hopes and dreams and explained to him that he couldn't plan to grow up to be either of those but he could grow up to be president. Which I am sure would have sent him into lifelong depression and therapy. Wouldn't you hate to go from thinking you could frolic in the trees all days eating nuts to thinking you had to be president and be surrounded by nuts?
Raising kids and encouraging them to pursue their dreams is a difficult job. I find there are two main obstacles on that path.

The first for me is that generally, by the time my kids are old enough to actually be thinking along the lines of what they might want to do every hour of every day of every year for the rest of their lives, they are also old enough to not want to do anything I suggest. My daughter, who has wanted to be a teacher since she was old enough to speak, was sitting in the orthodontist's chair one day. We were waiting, as is required by orthodontic law, our 45 minutes for someone to come in and change the color of the bands on her teeth. I looked around and decided this could be another career possibility for her. Wasn't it my job as her mother to open her eyes to any and all possibilities for her future? Sweetly I said to her, "You know, honey, you could be an orthodontist when you grow up".

Suddenly, my docile, loving daughter was channeling Linda Blair from The Exorcist. She looked at me with a ferocity I never knew existed within her 90 pound frame and said, in a voice straight from that movie, "I told you I am going to be a teacher".Well, of course. Let's look at the statistics. She can work long hours in a mostly thankless job getting paid far less than she deserves while parents, administrators, and politicians plan and criticize her every move. Or she could take every Wednesday afternoon and Friday off while making a gazillion dollars working with the exact same kids. Pardon my stupidity.
Editors note: The author does, in fact, completely support her daughter's choice of teaching as a career and is thankful that intelligent, caring people like her daughter are willing to devote their lives to the education of our youth. But that point is not nearly as interesting.

It has been like this every time I have had my children somewhere and that light bulb of inspiration has gone on over my head. Dermatologist office? Forget about it. Lawyer? No way.

What I really needed to do was take them everywhere I didn't want them to work and sweetly suggest they do that.

Which does bring me to the second stumbling block in this career encouragement. My kids are mostly limited to wanting to be what they have experienced in their own lives. We haven't let them watch much television so unlike most of the world, they haven't wanted to grow up to be forensic investigators or reality stars. They have no idea that David Hasselhoff has announced his retirement from his judge position, leaving a huge opening that one of them could fill. Nor do they know that Oprah and Tyra are leaving us soon. Not that any of them could fill Tyra's shoes. Some jobs are truly out of the reach of mere mortals.So what's a mom to do? I'm taking the whole just sit back and relax approach. And I truly wouldn't mind being the mother of squirrel or an Indian. (Or an orthodontist. But you didn't hear that from me.)