What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

My son has a homework assignment due tomorrow and he and I were discussing it this morning after breakfast. The question is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and he had to write an essay of sorts answering that question.

I asked him, “Well, what do you want to be?”

“I have a few ideas,” he told me. “But when you were six, what did you want to be?”

He has a way of answering many questions with a question! My Mother once told me I did exactly the same thing and she thought a curious mind was a good thing. So it always makes me smile to hear him ask things like that.

“Well, I wanted to either be a footballer or an actor when I was 6.”

“Auntie Stacey says that you wanted to be a writer and you wanted to live in Argentina.”

“That’s what I wanted when I was a teenager. What you want will change all the way from now until you’re an adult,” I told him.

“Ok. So this essay is going to be all wrong in a few years then?”

“It won’t be wrong. But the answer will have changed. It’s always good to have these essays to look back over.”

He didn’t say much and wandered off to his room. He returned a moment later with his school book and his pencil. He put them down on the table and came to sit next to me on the couch.

“So,” I asked him, “Have you thought about the answer?”

“Yep!” he told me. “I don’t want to be a footballer or an actor though. I can play football or act at the weekends but I want a job where I get to do important things.”

“Ok...” I said, “So what’s the dream job?”

“I want to be a writer who writes stories that people really like and poems that are special.”

I beamed. The writer within me leapt with joy. He’s really enjoyed writing lately and he and I are both currently taking part in NanoWrimo. The kids’ site resources are great. He loves to pen his own tales.

“Like, you know the poems you really like.... by the man from Chile? The one you said wrote poems that are really special to you?” he continued.

“Neruda?” I offered.

“Yes. Him.Well he’s gone now isn’t he but you still read his poems all the time. I want to make stories and poems that people will love forever.”

He’s been pretty much telling me for months that when he grows up he wants to be Justin Bieber, so when he was given this assignment, I was expecting him to answer in much the same way. But he has different ambitions already it seems.

“I think that’s a great thing to want to be,” I told him.

He smiled and leapt on my lap for a hug.

“And then,” he continued, “After I’ve done all the poems, I want to be Prime Minister....”

And he wandered to the table to start penning his dreams. He’s an ambitious boy. : )