When I was a kid and in school, there were sessions where the teacher would ask the kids 'what they want to be when they grow up?' and other kids had amazing answers. While some wanted to be astronauts, some wanted to make robots and climb Everest. I was as blank as a child as I am now. But, my parents always wanted me to be a doctor, so whenever my teacher would ask I would say 'doctor'. It took me really late to realise that my friends were as naive as me and the answers they gave about their future career options were all fed to their tiny brains by their parents.
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I realised that a 5 year old would not know the role of an astronaut or a doctor. It is always the parents who force their unachieved dream on their children which they often fail to achieve.
I have never told my son what I want him to be when he grows up, so when he was 3, his nursery school teacher asked the kids what they wanted to be and my son was quick to answer that he wanted to be 'dad'. I know that was funny and innocent and the class had a good laugh about it. The teacher, all laughs, told me about my 3 year old wanting to be a dad and laughter holding her tummy. This embarrassed my son a lot as if he has done a mistake by saying that and he conciously shifted to a more liked ' engineer' from then on. Had the teacher appreciated the little kid, other kids would have followed suit and we would get to hear some honest ' I want to be a ...' options.
