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OPINION

How about we stop asking kids what

they want to do when they grow up

Jo Stanley
Columnist

November 10, 2019 — 12.00am

I’d like to issue a public notice. Could every random adult who asks my 10-year-old daughter,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” just, well, not ask that? I know it’s just a lazy space-
filler for when you can’t think of anything else to say to someone’s kid. But, while it is intended as
harmless, it makes my skin crawl a bit.

I remember being repeatedly asked the same thing as a child, and having no idea what I wanted to
be. At 47, I don’t know if I’m any clearer. My answer would always be a lawyer, because I fancied
life in a TV court where everybody is super hot and very dramatic (thanks, LA Law), or a flight
attendant, because I loved their uniforms. (FYI, I became neither.)
It’s the wrong question to ask our kids: What do you want to be? It’s reductive, as though adult happiness
comes only from having the perfect job title. ISTOCK

My daughter’s stock answers are: basketball player, actor, mechanical engineer. Adults love that
last one, as it’s the perfect mix of sensible and ambitious. When she was much younger, my
daughter used to say she wanted to be Queen of the Clouds, which I loved. That’s the kind of goal-
setting I like to see in children: sprung from their boundless imagination.

Grown-ups are tedious and limiting in our need for reality, and we teach a very bleak image of
adulthood – that whatever our children’s future holds, it must be seen within the context of a job.
How utterly disheartening and dull. I have to swallow the urge to say, “Hey, back off my kid’s
dreams!”

But it’s the wrong question to ask our kids: What do you want to be? It’s reductive, as though adult
happiness comes only from having the perfect job title. So it’s also misleading, as most adults
eventually realise that happiness might co-exist with a great job, but being fulfilled doesn’t start
with where you work. It’s like we’re selling them a lie, and in the process distracting them from
important parts of growing up, like forming healthy relationships, learning to like themselves and
remembering to wear deodorant.

And we grown-ups should really be learning from our children, because they are the masters of
being. In this present moment, through the power of their perfect creativity, they can be anything
and everything they can think of. Wouldn’t you love to be able to just be, the way our kids can?

I’m not dismissing the idea that teenagers have to plan to do something after they finish school,
and parents are entitled to hope it’s more than simply spending five hours a day at the skate park.
But asking, “What do you want to be?” isn’t going to lead a young person to a fulfilled life. It leads
to false expectation and a high chance of disappointment.Instead of asking what, let’s ask

who do you want to be? Or better yet, who are you now?
I’ll admit, it’s a weird one to open with when you’re waiting for your morning coffee, so maybe just
start with a simple “Child-I-Barely-Know-But-Feel-Inclined-To-Chat-To, what do you love to do?”
Or, “What are you reading at the moment?” Or, “Tell me something you’ve learnt that you don’t
think I’d know.” Because kids are so clever and interesting. Also, their brains are pristine and
nimble, and our brains are old and slow, due to the 30 years of adulting they’ve been subjected to.

Let’s find ways to help our kids understand who they are, even if that means letting go of who we
think they should be.

Let’s encourage them to question and explore the things that make them unique and wonderful,
and to be curious about how they can do more of it – until one day it might actually end up being a
job they love.

If I’d been asked repeatedly as a child, “What do you love to do?” I’d have said, “I love writing
stories.” And if I’d heard myself say that often enough, maybe I would have found myself writing
for a living 15 years earlier than I actually did.

I want my daughter to know her future is hers to create: whether she ends up Queen of the Clouds
or running the Cloud. But it starts with loving and growing who she is now. And being that person
is all she needs to be. No matter what any adult says.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on
sale November 10.

Jo Stanley is a writer, actor, radio broadcaster. Connect via Twitter.