When I grow up, I am going to be a princess. No, wait…I want to be a rock star who rides horses and marries a prince so I can live in a castle. Or maybe I’ll be a veterinarian, the President of the United States, a doctor, or even a teacher. When I grow up, I want to be a ballerina on Saturdays and spend the rest of my time writing books. Yes, a writer. When I grow up, I want to be a writer who drives a convertible and has a farm. When I grow up… I want to be a _______________! (Feel free to insert your answer.)
If you’ve ever listened to a child talk about what they want to be when they grow up, it’s amazing to see the enthusiasm and twinkle in their eyes. They might dance around the room with the coordination of a black bear, exclaiming that they’ll be the best dancer in the world. Or, perhaps they live in the middle of New York City, but carry around a rodeo rope, practicing for the Wild West they plan to live in when they grow up. Most enlightening, though, is that every time your child opens their mouth—or is influenced by the media—their dream shifts. Yet, regardless of what they fill in the blank above, it’s clear that when a child grows up, they want to be somebody!
You’ve heard the stories of famous athletes, actors, or businesspeople whose parents tell the tale of how they’ve been following their dream since they were just two years old. It makes you wonder whether these kids would have turned into the superstars they are without a parent who encouraged their carefree dreams. While it’s often assumed that some people are born with talent for sports, dance, or business, others are not—it seems children still believe wholeheartedly that there’s no stamp on their DNA that decides who or what they can be. In fact, a child believes, in the simplest of moments, that they can be a princess, a cowboy, or an astronaut. With no one to tell them otherwise, that’s exactly who they become in their imagination.
The Loss of Childhood Dreams: Growing Up and Letting Go
Somewhere along the way, as we grow up, humans get the message that we have limitations. Through societal pressures and systems, we learn that dreaming, imagining, and creating a perfect existence is unrealistic and silly. So, instead of pursuing their rock star dreams or a life in the circus, children fall in line, joining the bandwagon of routine that turns them into “ordinary” people. But what if, as a parent, you listened and allowed your child to follow all of their dreams to the fullest extent of their interest and ability? Yes, you might find yourself chasing them around in a non-literal world, but in doing so, you’d be opening up the real world for them in incredible ways.
What’s most sad is that by the time these imaginative, creative, and wonderful little creatures called children become middle schoolers, they often have no idea what they want to be. They want to make money, for sure. They’ve heard endless talk from adults about college education and lucrative careers. They’ve likely participated in career days and taken aptitude tests designed to help them find their strengths in life. Fast forward to high school, and ‘graduation coaches’ are prompting them to select classes that align with their chosen career path (as if they have a clue). Then comes college, first jobs, romance, and the drive to earn their own money—all of which steer them further away from their childhood dreams. They’ve learned what it takes to be seen as “successful,” but they’ve lost their aptitude for dreaming. Ask them now what they want to be when they grow up, and they’ll likely shrug, trying to find the answer that will please the adults in their life. If only you could force them to stand in the center of your living room, wearing a ballerina dress and twirling until they fell dizzy, with the dreams of becoming a famous dancer, just as they did when they were four.
There are probably very few people who grew up to be what they wanted to be as young children. These people become parents, stuck behind computer screens, living lives that make ends meet. They may feel cheated, down deep, and start pushing their own childhood dreams onto their children, unaware that their child is not them. Watching your own child, it’s easy to see the millions of missed opportunities you had as a child. You can see that, had your parents encouraged you to play baseball, you might have been the next Chipper Jones. It’s easy to recognize that your most basic and imaginative knowing of who you are and what you wanted to be was spot on. Then, you spend much of your adult life trying to figure out a way to live out those dreams again, but you’re so stuck in financial commitments and responsibilities that it’s nearly impossible. The point is, at some time in your life, you’ll return to what you wanted to be when you grew up. You may not become an astronaut or a ballerina. You may never make it to the Wild West, become President, or have your own television show. You may not step foot on a professional athletic field. But you might be a coach, a business owner. You may own a few horses or work at a museum. In other words, after years of misdirection and superficial reasons for existing, you will return to your passions and imagination once more. It’s just sad that we feel the need to wait so long to do so.
The next time the child in your life says, “When I grow up, I want to be a crocodile hunter,” decide to listen and live in their world for just a few minutes. Allow them to dream, and take care not to do anything that will discourage them. In time, all of that will happen anyway!
