Be Anything, Except...
What do you want to be when you grow up? Is what they would ask. This was, at least in my geographical upbringing, the only thing an adult would ask any kid, starting around 7 and up to 18 years old.
If they imagined themselves a comedian then they might start asking you around 3 years old so you inevitably provide a "‘kids say the darndest things” moment for everyone with answers like “a princess”, “the boss” or “batman”. Back then I didn’t understand why that was THE question everyone was asking and I am proud to say that I still don’t. I have guesses and there are surely real reasons as to why in America children are playfully questioned about vocation, but I am not interested in answers because they are not interesting. They are ends, meant to justify means, just like a vocation.
Once you answered the big question,that’s usually when all the “help” would begin in the form of trying to talk you out of whatever your answer was.
This is one of the reasons I never, ever answered the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. I never even said “an artist” even though I already was one. I didn’t want to hear what was wrong about that and frankly It just didn’t seem like any of their business. For a tiny person who is 10+ years away from any significant, career-based work, the question is clearly not practical. Therefor, it becomes nothing short of a weirdly intimate and condescending personality quiz for an undeveloped human. Like asking, “what is your essence?” Or “What do you love?” — so I can criticize it as a career.
But not answering the big question triggered a different kind of “help” that was much worse. If you didn’t choose what you wanted to be or at least start saying something precocious when people asked, then you were beginning to show signs of being what was termed in the 80’s as a “problem child”. Shout out to all my not-quite-Gen-X-and-not-quite-Millennial problem children brothers and sisters. Maybe you got paddled at school or were unnecessarily prescribed Ritalin too, so you know that the label resulted in a lot of human experimenting in the ever dangerous for children form of adult “help”.
Not having a job picked out or a quick or cute answer poisoned the whole well. Now when you answered they knew you weren’t sure or correctly assumed you were just answering to humor or obey them. Obedience was required, but didn’t count without them believing you believed it was right.
I could always tell when I wasn’t playing the adult’s version of reality the right way when they were really upset, but couldn’t explain why.
And getting tagged as a problem child for having a learning disability or not knowing what job you wanted, only put you on the ex-con list of adult trust and freedom privileges. Now you were going to be forced, for your own good, to pick a job title just so you can then be forced to try and get good enough at it that you get paid for it, for your own good, because otherwise, what would be the point of doing anything?