Given the recent post about college choices I thought this might be a fun topic.

What do Your Children want to be as Adults?

My 9 year old either wants to be a fish or a marine biologist.

My ds11 wants to be an astrogeologist, traveling to the other rocky planets to learn more about their geology in person. He figures he is on track to be among the first to travel to Mars.

My dd9 wants to be an engineer and study paleontology as a hobby.

DS7: engineer, artist, car designer, scientist, architect, author, race car driver...all-around renaissance man!

DS4: Astronaut

DS 12 wants to be a wolf biologist. He has been reading about pack behavior for years and has seen a few captive wolves. He just saw his first wild wolf this month. He is really passionate about anything wolfy.

This is a fun topic!

DS7 - doctor or marine biologist
DD (reminding us often she'll be 4 next week) - ballerina or circus performer Just for the record, we have no history of coordination or grace in our family!

DSalmost8: engineer, scientist at NASA,

- seems to be an ongoing theme at this board!

DS5: no idea

GS8, botanist.

DS2 either (1) Diego - animal rescuer or (2) a race car driver. He's all about adventure and speed.

Fun!

DD8- Teacher

DD5- Scientist- the kind that blows stuff up.

They're eating Pizza Hut right now and say pizza maker would also be cool.

Are any of you doing what you wanted to be as a child? I wanted to be an aeronotical engineer, which is so far from where I'm at now. If I had it to do all over again, I'd want to be an architect.

At my girl's ages I wanted to be a teacher. Kind of doing it now.

During college I envisioned myself sitting in a room by myself getting paid to research and write.

Still sounds good!

Sort of, though I came back around to it after trying other things. I'm (allegedly) a writer now (though I've done precious little writing lately!), and that was what I wanted to be in elementary school.

Funny. I hadn't though about that. It never hit me that I'm doing what I used to want to do when I was a child.

Allegedly, guffaw!

So modest!

Sadly, no. Not modest. Just honest.

If you don't do any writing for the better part of a year, I don't think you can call yourself a writer. I've dabbled a bit, but I haven't exactly been driven to write. Not good...

Kriston, you're an incredibly talented mother, teacher, and writer. Any one of those jobs stands alone - yet you're managing all 3.

Sing it, sister!

You're very kind. Wrong, but kind!

Of course, I blame all of you for your siren's song that keeps me from writing.

J'accuse!!!

<smirk>

Self-control? Discipline? What are those?

I'm fascinated by those executing their childhood dreams. I only know of one person doing it. As a young child he knew he wanted to be a physicist and where he wanted to go to school. He teaches physics at a university now and went to CalTech, Stanford, and Cornell.

All aboard the train of guilt -- ditto in the realm of work/studying and unhealthy eating.

See, that takes drive and ambition. That wasn't how I got here. I meandered toward my dream.

I find that amazing as well. There are those have such a clear view from such an early age and never seem to waiver.

It that's the case for C-dog, I hope she moves to a neighboring state. I don't want to be close when she is "blowing stuff up"!

LOL, 'Neato!

Did I mention that DS4 asked for "a soldier with bombs and stuff" for his birthday?

OMG, are those two made for one another, or what? I hear wedding bells...

Oh Kriston, don't get me started......

You guys are really not THAT far away. We will have to meet up someday!

Kriston,

you may want to edit that post real quick for name

Yes, please edit Kriston. The unknown/lurkers/etc. make me nervous. There are several times when I've accidentally typed DS's name and had to go back and erase it.

Oops. Nice catch. Thanks! That['s what I get for trying to do two things at once...

Kriston and Neato - wistfully... maybe one day there can be a family reunion for our message board.

One time I name dropped and then logged off. When I came back I had a courtesy PM about it but it was too late to edit it.


What color are you painting your dining room?

Yikes! The "troll" incident was a rude awakening for me.

A get together should be a goal, that would be great.
I should be cleaning, at least you are attempting to something productive!

Plus I do discuss the girls alot, personally.
It wouldn't be fair to them if they could be identified by my chronic posting.
Oh the horror!

Pud says: after college and "graduation school", I want to be a daddy who stays at home with the kids. Okay, so maybe we'll just skip the higher education part ($$$) and let him be a mechanic until he's a daddy (like when he's 35!). He also asked me if his wife would let him stay home and would I ask her when I picked her out for him?

As a child, I wanted to be a historian, President of US, or a rocket scientist. Ended up a software engineer because I finally had to just choose a major and get out of school and earn a living. I'd still like to be a historian - it's fascinating. But, hard to make a living at it without a PhD.

This will probably sound boring... it's a light gray with the most subtle hint of blue. I like the contrast of metal, wood and glass. I'd describe my home as rustic contemporary. (e.g., The centerpiece on my dining room table is a creamy low bottomed glass bowl filled with moss - in the center is a bird's nest filled with greenish rocks.) There is very little clutter or things in my home. Since I was a kid, I've made my living area sparse to help clear out the mental clutter. I probably sound nutty.

OMG Squirt - I l-o-v-e your son!

Yes, Pud is tres cool.

Thanks, Ann, he comes up with some pretty funny things sometimes. I might have to get the wife part down in writing to show him when he's 18.

Ann, sounds lovely!

Love it - LOL!

Priorities!

Love that!

Oh, yes - please tuck it away in a journal about DS. What a neat little boy.

DS5 usually tells me he wants to be various professional sports players.

AS a child I wanted to be a mom. My wish came true.

Both my kids want to be dads, too, crisc. I think I always assumed I would be a mom, but I don't think I put that in my list of aspirations.

Though in 1st grade, I said I wanted to be a "farmer's wife." We have it in writing. So much for the strides made by feminism in the 70s...LOL!

Kriston!!!!!!!!!!!!!
READ YOUR PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crisc, that is so wonderful.

I was a snarly teenager and swore I would NEVER have children!

So glad I didn't know what I was talking about.

You're cracking me up! I was responding as you wrote that, ya' goof!

Sorry, folks, got a little carried away.

I have a permagrin pasted on, 'Neato. You're such fun!

Oooh - I like "permagrin." I was just thinking about how Neato makes me smile.

Aw shucks

DS6 is the only one who will say what he wants to be: a surfer and a doctor. Note that we live in a land-locked state!

I do not know what DD4.5 wants to be when she grows up but I think I may have a future 'Judy Dench' in my hands.... This is one of the areas where she is not underachieving LOL!

When I was 5 I wanted to be a poet and painter. Then as a teenager I wanted to be a doctor and do research. Then at the end of High School I changed again my mind and wanted to study Physics. Once I started University I toyed with the idea of changing to Mathematics but did not do it.
I never had in my mind to be a 'housewife' but here I am ....

Now when DS is a little bit older I would like to do ,,,, any ideas? suggestions?

I just asked DS4 what he wanted to be when he grows up. Not surprisingly, he said he wants to create Tower Defense computer games and/or video games. And play them too. And he says he'll create them very quickly so nobody has to wait so long for the new versions to come out.

I can't remember what I wanted to be. I still don't know! Being a mom is working well for now, though.

I wanted to be a math teacher, until I realized I don't like more than 1 or 2 children around at a time! I'm a programmer/analyst now, but the computer industry hadn't taken off when I was in school. Only a few kids had calculators in high school, I still have my slide rule someplace. Can you believe my father-in-law thought computers were a fad just 20 years ago?

LOL! Love this!

haha, I should clarify that, I don't like being around more than a couple of people at one time no matter what their ages. I can do it, but it's a major exertion for me.

Understood. Introverts of the world, unite!

ummm, sure, as long as we don't have to get together!

ROFL! Maybe I should have written "Introverts of the world, go have some much-needed alone time!"

You're on a roll today, OHG! Love that!

LOL, OMA! ROFL!

DS7 told me today that he wants to invent a teleporter so we can get rid of all other forms of transportation and we can all just travel anywhere we want any time we want. I told him that sounded like a great way to solve the current gas price problems!!!! LOL!!!

<Oooo oooooo ooo oo-oo oo oo/ Oo oooo oooooo ooo oo-oo oo oooo...>

(In case you can't tell, that's my version of the first two lines of the Star Trek theme song, the original.)

DS5 has told us for the past year that he wants to be a Tornado Chaser Scientist and study weather :-)

So I asked DD:

'I want to study the rainbow'

Then she said as well the plants and the laptop

This article crossed one of my lists, and I thought it was relevant to this discussion of childhood goals:

http://www.more.com/lifestyle/memoirs/my-so-called-genius/

She writes about precociousness and how that affects later success (or lack thereof). It's a good reminder that smart is nice, but perfectionism and lack of hard work pretty much guarantee that you won't fulfill your promise...and then with age, you can get past all that and just be you.

There's a paragraph on page 2 that I ought to frame and put over my computer. Perfectionism, be gone! Be good, not great!

Oh, Kriston, I LOVED it! I remeber panicking when I realized (belatedly) that the only skill I had was being brilliant.

LOL! For me it was the pressure of being voted "Most likely to succeed" in high school.

Oh, no pressure there!

Um...Succeed at what? How? Can someone draw me a map? Hello? Anyone?

So, yeah, I hear you, aline!

Thanks for the article. Some of her points really hit home with me.

I just asked DS5 when he wanted to be when he grows up and he told me, "A baseball umpire". He went on to tell me that he thinks he would be great at determining strikes and balls.

LOL, kcab! Yes, the name of Pippi's house is Villa Villekulla (sp?).

"I'll take 'Obscure Kid's Lit Names' for $200, Alex."

<smirk>

Oh! LOL! The string sounds to me like he made it up.

The names Cody and Savannah are too current to sound like Pippi and the animal names too normal. You can't name a monkey Mr. Nilsen (sp?) and then call anything a mere Flipper or Splash.

Asia (the continent) is mentioned in the books in reference to Pippi and her father's travels, but I don't think it's used as a name in any other sense.

But that's just my take. Maybe it's in the book and I just don't remember it. I hope not. I like it better if your son put it all together!

It sounds like Pippi's name... Pippalotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking.

DS wants to be a blacksmith, and has for about a year and a half now. If he keeps it up for a few more years I have a friend who has a friend who has a kind of "high-end" blacksmithing business (mostly door and cabinet hardware, and locks), and she said she could probably set him up with a summer internship... but it's another case of you have to be "this high" to reach the anvil... LOL

I hear that when I was 5 I wanted to be a music teacher so I could teach everyone all the songs I knew that no one else did. By High school I wanted to work for either the CIA or the consular service. I do teach my son music now but am in a very boring cubicle job.

ds7 - illustrator, writer, mad scientist and REAL ESTATE agent, which just cracks me up!
DS2 - as far as we can tell, a dancer.

self - wanted to be an 'eye doctor'. Turned out to be a programmer and mom, but I have had a couple of frantic opportunities to do eye-trauma triage (tiny piece of dust in eye!!!! aaahh!!!! mooooom!!!!)

Ph. D. Mathematician/like his favorite uncle. DS10 has never wavered on that one.

DD9- Anything to do with animals/nature: snake scientist (eek!), veterinarian, Jane Goodall's assistant, "cat whisperer"

DS3- leaf blower (I assume he meant a person who uses one, not the actual tool but who knows)

DD13 wants to be a doctor and DS11 wants to be a physicist/engineer/inventor/aviator/author.