When I Grow Up

“What do you want to be when you grow up…?”

“Umm, an astronaut!?” “A ballerina!?” “A movie star!?”

Seems like an innocent enough question coupled with equally innocent answers, right? I’d love to know how many children are asked this in a given day, or how many times a single child is asked this during their childhood.

While on the surface the question appears harmless, I actually believe this question to be meaningless and ultimately insulting. As a simple example, let’s say that a top earning 40-something asked that same question to a college 20-something. Despite the 20 year difference between the two, there’s almost no way that question could be received in a positive way. The 20-something is going to feel demeaned and devalued. Per the question’s meaning: they’re “not grown up yet”, the 40-something has experience on them, and they’re just a “kid” waiting for the “next stage” in life.

So, we can easily illustrate the ability for that question to devalue even in older folks. The main problem boils down to the question’s inherently false assumption that there is a “next stage” that is going to be more magnificent than the stage we’re at now. That’s really what we’re asking: what is the magnificent thing you can imagine that you’ll be doing that you aren’t doing right NOW.

What’s worse for the child is that they’re conceptual reasoning sense is still developing. Therefore, for them to conceive of a future to that degree and abstraction is just not physically possible. (And no, this question does not “help” them do that). Arguments in favor of the question abound: 1) gets the child to use their imagination, 2) gets the child to dream of their own potential and possibilities, 3) gets them to think about the “real world”, etc…

The answers to those arguments are simple. A child has a far more developed and active imagination than any adult. They don’t need “help” or prompting to develop their already developed imagination. Trying to get them to conceive of your “real world” is simply insulting. You’re grown up, they’re not. They get the picture already, let’s not rub it in with this question. Being a grown up is not a more valuable stage in life than being a child, and this question implies that it is.

What I wish a child could seriously ask the adult is: “What do you want to do with the next 5 minutes of your life? What world can you imagine right NOW?” That’s the world that the child is thinking, dreaming, and imagining, and they’re doing a masterful job of it in every moment. Instead of devaluing the child’s current world by encouraging them to replace it with the grown-up-world in that question, let’s hold up and value their world as it stands! As a result, we’ll value the person that they inherently and currently are, and at every future magnificent life-stage that child-come-adult will feel a deeper connection to their own inherent value because of the value that was given to their “world” as a child.