This blog is inspired by a thought that’s been on my mind a lot lately.
Do you remember when you were younger, everyone asked you this one question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Of course because you were so young, you wanted to be anything that could save or help people, right? For example, you may have wanted to be a firefighter, a police officer, or a doctor. But we never hear about the kids who want to be a therapist, or a psychiatric nurse, or even a janitor. These jobs still exist though, don’t they?
I say all of that to say, for some of the jobs that people settle for, no college degree is required. So, are we making it okay for our youth to unknowingly inquire that they do not need a college degree to be successful? Don’t get me wrong, some families are wealthy enough to live graciously without working hard, but what about those families living paycheck to paycheck? It is not possible to break that cycle, if no hard work is being put in and by hard work, I mean college. But like I said, we’re doing this unknowingly. I have a few suggestions to fix this.
Let’s not steer away from asking kids what they want to be when they grow, continue to ask that, but let’s follow that question with five more questions:
- What are the requirements for that job?
- What if something happens where you cannot fulfill the needs of that job physically anymore, what is your Plan B?
- If your Plan B deals with using your brain, instead of your body, what college are you going to?
- What will you major in?
- What’s the pay difference?
Depending on the age of the child, they will most definite not know the answer to any of these questions. But if we contentiously ask them these questions, they’ll have some type of motivation to go and research the answers. That’s a step closer to getting our youth to be greater than us. A step closer to breaking the cycle. A step closer to them gaining more knowledge. But we can only get there, if we try.
I know this method works from personal experience. My mother used this method. By middle school, I could tell you what I wanted to be, what I could be, the pay of both jobs, what colleges offered that field, and so much more. Come on, America, let’s make the generation better than ours.
I wanted to be a princess/super model when I was little, so uhh don’t think that’s going to be happening anytime soon. It’s really sweet to see what kids want to be when they grow up, but also jarring they don’t have any idea what that entails to get to that end goal.
I do understand where you’re coming from, Michael with parents asking what we want us to be. I don’t think my parents asked me as often as most though. I told them when I was younger that I wanted to be a veterinarian, but that slowly morphed as I got older. It was more of my teachers asking us what we wanted to be, and they would base projects around us discovering our jobs. But after 8th grade, no one cared, so I did it for myself. I guess that’s when I became obsessed with researching colleges and figuring out my majors. I still bounce around sometimes, but I always center back on a major in English.
when I grow up, I want to be an anime character. Not all the time, but still.