Just for fun. Ds9 started with automotive engineering, he wanted to make the first flying car. Then it was Navy so he could build engines on Battleships. After that we went to Vet, electrical engineer, weapons designer, inventor, karate instructor, meteorologist, astronomical engineer, bum (no joke) and now 4th generation Sun Devil football player and video game designer lol. Dd7 wants to be Queen.

My DS10 went through a similar list which included "be a stay at home person while someone else makes the money." lol... ok. My daughter, meanwhile, goes back and forth between artist and math teacher.

My DS4 says, "I want to do every single job there is."

Has he seen the Terrafugia? Or the AeroMobil?? There's also the SkyCar prototype.

Dd4 wants to work at the airport for a few days and then be a vet, if working at the drive through for kfc doesn't work out that is...

DD wants to be a jazz musician. She wants to compose, perform, arrange, and jam.

I have nothing against jazz musicians but the idea that everyone is investing a lot in her education so that she could one day make a living playing jazz in bars and clubs prompts me to have a second thought.

When 9, DS had been following some lead Minecraft beta testers with fascination. He informed me, half smart-alec, half in hope, that he intended to "get a PhD in video game breaking".

He was quite taken aback when I informed him that (a) he probably could; and (b) that's how his 75-year grandfather was earning a living these day (albeit with product rather more mundane than Minecraft).

Dog breeder. Or, he wants to make a lot of money, retire and do that, I can't remember.

A teacher. Which is lovely, because it shows how great the teachers are.


You're investing in her education so she becomes a happy resilient adult who's not afraid to try new things and who is interested in and enthusiastic about the world. Give me a happy relaxed jazz musician over a miserable, stressed out afraid to fail Nobel laureate any day.

15 year old wanted to,be as a young child a real estate owner/ business owner who had "people" who ran things so that he could make money while he wrote books...he wanted to be an author.

Now he is not so sure...math and science are easy for him but his big interest is history so who knows. Still loves reading.

My 10 year old for a time wanted to write too. I think school NCLB writing assessments and formulaic writing instruction has sucked the love of writing right out of both boys.

Right now he has no career dreams. He loves anything to do with performing arts but hasn't said that is a particular dream.

Once he found out someone else was working on it he moved on lol

at the age of 6, the plan changes every 2 or 3 months.

currently it's 'a pilot'

I second that - and at that age I wouldn't be worried yet. :-) Also, the comforting(ish) thing is that it's possible to have a career and play jazz on the side but less so to be a jazz musician and be, for example, a doctor on the side -- she'll find a way to manage both, I'm sure. I know people who've done it to different extents, one just needs determination. She'll always have music and she'll always have her education - she'll just choose what she's making a living from. Although she could probably make quite a bit with weekend gigs....

Just asked my daughter for the first time, and apparently she wants to be a ninja, but she just turned 3, so she might change career paths.

Chemist or stunt woman.

DD2 = "booboo animal doctor"
DD4 = "sign twirler" (those folks who hold advertising signs on street corners)
DD6 = "veterinarian" (still about the booboo animals)
DD8 = "veterinarian who engineers animal prosthetics"
DD10 = "ethicist" (after confirming that this was a real job)
DD12 = "photographer or veterinarian"

She's always been surprisingly consistent. I have to admit from an adult perspective the ethics thing is the most interesting.

Ds7 has never nailed anything down but it typically has something to do with coding or science.

Ds5 wants to be a gymnastics coach

My DD's ambitions are trending upwards.

@3: a mermaid, a butterfly, and a ballerina
@5: a cashier at Walmart
@7: a teacher
@9: a robotics engineer

Tallulah & FruityDragons, Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated. To avoid hijacking this thread, I'm going to think out loud in the competition thread.

DS4 spontaneously mentioned these 3 (in ascending order of importance/desirability):

3. Race car driver
2. Astronaut
1. Engineer/inventor

DS16 has no idea. Something in STEM is about as specific as we can get out of him.

Love reading these posts - it's so interesting!

DD10 wants to write, and is currently thinking of journalism.

DS7 last year it was video game designer. This year he told us letter carrier (because it seems easy, and he doesn't want to work hard - LOL). Then he learned that mathematician was a real job, so now he wants to do that (or be a grade 3 math teacher).

My son is 5 and since he was 4.5 he has said that he wants to be a level designer, making dungeons, puzzles, and mazes for games. When his preschool class asked the kids what they want to be when they grow up and he answered level designer, no one had any idea what he was talking about, lol. He then tried writing it, thinking they just weren't understanding his speech or that he was saying it wrong.

Ds today said he wants to be a wide receiver who owns a restaurant and builds inventions in his garage...I told him to go for it!

DS 5 wants to be a contractor, a physicist, an actor, an environmentalist and an author of children books that do not have any sad parts in them.

DS3 hasn't declared that he wants to work in any particular profession when he's an adult, but these are the things he enjoys pretending to be during play:

- A construction worker
- A housekeeper
- An engineer
- A veterinarian
- A father
- A scientist
- A doctor (specifically, a radiologist or immunologist)

Dd11 wants to be a professional soccer player. When I mentioned that soccer players might not last too long, she said that she would make so much money she could retire when she got too old to play. When asked what she would do then, she said "play video games." So we looked up salaries for professional women's team players and it turns out that the average salary is about $8,000/year So now she wants to be on the Olympic soccer team and then be a scientist!

We joke that our daughters talents will cause her to be the next Katy perry (her favorite) and all her money will go to fund her brothers science experiments, inventions, labs, restaraunts and football career lol

My daughter (4) said ballerina.

drone pilot

DS4 wants to be an engineer, doctor, architect, and dad -- all at the same time. He says he'll stay home with his kids 6 days a week and rotate through the jobs on the last day.

DD2: Emeril. Or maybe a puppeteer for Sesame Street.
DD3: forensic pathologist, and Emeril
DD5: mathematician and FBI agent
DD6: astrophysicist and concert pianist
DD9: civil rights attorney and physicist
DD10: civil rights attorney and mathematician
DD11: civil rights attorney, then federal judge, and jazz pianist
DD12: civil rights attorney, then federal judge, or something in physics
DD12-13: Federal law enforcement?
DD13: something in physics, probably, but maybe electrical engineering and/or mathematics
DD14: math teacher, maybe? computer scientist? Statistician!!
DD15: Stats-math, technical theater, maybe physics or public health, or, or, or...


It's been interesting to see how her interests have evolved.

Your son wins the internet, SAHM!

DD6 - chemist or artist - the chemist has been a high runner since we saw an amazing chemistry demo put on at a local university two years ago. She wan't to "work in a lab and make things go boom!!!"

DS8 - the latest one is to work at the LHC. Generally his ideas revolve around physics, math or engineering.

Should be interesting to see where they end up... I would be surprised if DS strays away from STEM but DD is much more even so who knows where she'll find her passion in the end.

My now nearly 5yr old DS wants to be a water slide engineer since he was 3.5.

DS8 wants to run a family hotel, like the wonderful place we go to once a year for skiing.
Or teach physics in high school like his father, but not combine it with math but with chemistry.
Recently he's come up with "what do you call the people who design what products look like? That's what I'd like to do...".
He is excellent at drawing. I confess I've been checking out industrial design schools at night...I'm thinking materials science and then a graduate degree in art school...dear me, let's get him safely through the middle school years first!

#1--math teacher
#2--architect
#3--queen

Asked again this morning, and dd3 wants to make toys. I don't think I have ever told her that she comes from a family fairly full of engineers.

The last time this came up I asked her and she had wanted to be a Ninja, so I guess her career plans are still in flux.

They keep changing their minds.

DD: math teacher, artist, illustrator, author, video producer

DS: pilot, anesthesiologist, stay at home spouse ("I want someone else to go make the money"), dentist, actor

Awww... So awesome.

I caught DS4 playing last month - standing in front of his whiteboard with a toy microphone talking to his toys. He said "Hi my name is [name], Im an astrophysicist, today I am going to teach you about the planets & the universe" then he started drawing in detail our solar system & drawing spiral galaxies.

When I ask him what he wants to be, he usually replies astronaut (wants to live on Mars), Doctor and an astrophysicist

hahaha love this thread!

For DS3 it's a toss-up between "a surgeon who fixes the baby's bones in the mummies' tummies" and an astronaut so he can "fly my rocket to the sun and take my Mummy and Daddy and Jack (our dog)". I told him it's awfully hot up there but thanks for the invitation

Ds9 wants to be a math professor and 9911 wants to be a computer graphics designer

DD4 has recently decided to be an astronaut.
Today, after I'd buckled her up in her car seat, she called me back to remind me, in a serious voice "if I am going to be an astronaut, I will need a rocket ship soon!" -"sure, my love, " I said, "we'll think of something."

Well, as a rule I am quite resourceful, but this one I haven't come up with a solution for yet...

DS8 wants to go to Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory, NC, major in Political Science, and eventually become President of the United States of America.

TripleB

My DS8 wants to be an astrophysicist like his hero Neil deGrasse Tyson- except April-May when he's a stormchaser.

DD7 wants to be a blue angels pilot or a marine hospital doctor.

DD12 has lots of ideas: author illustrator, animator, bio-medical engineer who discovers which viruses cause which cancers and develops a vaccine for them, or a musician.

DS5 wants to be carpenter who builds tiny houses out of recycled material that are cheap to build and can house homeless people. He loves to sit around drawing/tinkering and working on his "prototypes".

DS4: policeman

DS7: wants to genetically engineer creatures that sound a lot like Pokemon without the ball, create video games that look real, discover how to transport all of Earth's creatures to an alternate planet just in case we need to evacuate at some point and be an author

He's 7 and wants to be a vet specializing in avian research, specifically California condors. He wants to be the one who reintroduces them to the wild in Oregon. It's the only thing he's ever wanted to be and chose it when he was 4. Kindergarten graduation was interesting when each kid announced what they wanted to be - police officers, firefighters, dancers, singers, race car drivers, etc... And then a very specific specialty vet .