Let’s stop asking kids what they want to be
When I was young, there were a handful of future professions that my friends and I aspired to be — doctor, nurse, teacher, actor, writer, artist, farmer, lawyer, journalist, astronaut, president, model, fashion designer, rockstar and famous athlete, among others. Personally, I vacillated among several of these through the years, until I ultimately became a teacher then a writer.
But then something interesting happened. My writing stretched into blogging which later stretched into online writing, social media management and digital marketing to where now, most of the work I do is something that was unfathomable when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s.
While I am a columnist for The Smoky Mountain News, a children’s book author, aspiring women’s fiction novelist and freelance writer for other publications, I’m also a brand partnership manager for six popular YouTube channels. I work with brands to negotiate ad space spending on these channels. If you’ve ever watched a long-form YouTube video, you’ve likely noticed a sponsored ad that runs somewhere in the middle of the video, very similar to the commercials we used to watch back in the day. I communicate with the brands to negotiate rates, ad length and finalize content for the ad space.
It’s something that I fell into five years ago and enjoy as it allows me to continue the writing work I’m passionate about and offers flexibility so I can be an involved mom. On that note, working from home or hybrid work environments (part in person and part remote) were also nonexistent a few decades ago.
Similarly, when I was teaching, we used to say, “We’re preparing kids for an unknown future.” It’s no secret that technology and AI are rapidly changing work environments in every profession, so much so that we don’t know how certain jobs will shift from one year to the next, much less five or ten years from now.
This knowledge, combined with having five teenagers/young adults in our family, has made me more sensitive to the ever-changing, somewhat confusing future of most professions and to the conversations surrounding this topic.
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A couple of times in the recent past, someone has asked my 14-year-old son, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Both times, he answered with, “I’m not sure.” And it’s not because he’s unaware of his strengths or that he doesn’t know what he would want to be at this very moment if he were an adult. It’s because jobs are evolving daily, so he is honestly unsure. One can say they want to be a doctor, but what will a doctor look like in 10 years? Same with teacher, attorney, electrician, engineer … fill in the blank.
I don’t blame people, especially older individuals for asking this question, as it’s the main question adults have asked kids for generations. With the future employment landscape so vague, asking kids what they want to be when they grow up is no longer a relevant conversation starter, and from my observations, it feels antiquated and can make a kid shut down when they feel unprepared to answer.
Again, I don’t bemoan adults for trying their best to chat with young people using the same tactic they’ve used for years, but there are better questions to ask these days. If you want a child or teen to open up, ask things like “What fun things do you have going on right now?” or “What’s on the horizon for next year?”
Something I admire about today’s youth is they’re more attuned with the present than previous generations. My generation and older generations charged full-steam ahead into the future confident we would eventually reach the pinnacle of contentment and achievement, but then we age, grow wise and realize no such place exists, so why not embrace the moment we’re in? Why not enjoy the journey instead of focusing so much on the destination?
I love that we’re shifting away from the pension-minded, daily-grind, hustle mentality where everyone is working for the weekend to a more refreshing pace where younger generations are curious about the employment landscape and trying to find careers they truly enjoy.
Instead of nudging my own children to think decades in advance, I’ve started using the “next right thing” philosophy. What’s the next right step or next right choice based on where you want to be in a few years? Another way to illustrate this is the headlights on a foggy night metaphor. When you’re driving on a foggy night, your headlights show enough of the road to keep you safe, but no more. When life feels overwhelming or when the jobscape of our future world is unknown, it’s best to look only a short distance in front of us — just enough to keep our hearts and psyches safe.
(Susanna Shetley is a writer and digital media specialist who lives in Haywood This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
