While someone once said there’s comfort in numbers, I don’t think they were talking about careers. In fact, from the perspective of a 4-year old, I’d surmise that there is comfort in the opposite—the power of one, career.
This past Saturday, the kids and I were walking through the Denver zoo with our family friend, CB, and her 4-year old son, Ben. The boys began scouring one of the habitats for a baby zebra when Ben announced he wanted to be a zookeeper when he grew up. CB asked my son, TT, also 4, what he wanted to be. No surprise, “I want to be a zookeeper too!” he proudly proclaimed. Of course, I had never heard him utter this desire once prior.
As we pushed our way through the encroaching 100degree mark, and our pace began to slow as a consequence, I noticed all the messaging aimed at our children. From hats to pins to plastic tumblers, for a price, any child could be walking around the park as a “junior zookeeper.” Since TT himself can’t read yet, nor, I assume, most of the preschool crowd wandering the exhibits, I deduced that it’s not parents purchasing mere souvenirs, but caregivers actually buying a career aspiration for their kids . “Here Bobby Sue, you’re now a ‘junior zookeeper in training’!”
And she grins with her newfound “job,” and hat or pin or plastic tumbler.
TT didn’t get a souvenir that day, or at least not the “junior zookeeper” type. And in fact, his “I want to be a zookeeper” mantra quickly changed Sunday to “Momma, can I be a truck driver when I grown up?” as he watched 18-wheelers roll down the freeway on our drive to Costco. Ah, recency theory at work.
While I understand the power of immediacy for a 4-year old, I didn’t see any crossover in TT’s thinking. For example, he could be a zookeeper that drives animals from habitat to habitat, or trucks to natural lands to find or save endangered breeds. But these options were as remote as the lost sock in the laundry. And given the proverbial, cultural questions of “what are you going to be when you grow up?” to “what do you do?”, it should come as no surprise that children and adults alike struggle to define their work.
While I’ve worn many hats over the years, from waitress to student to professor, at any given time, I had some “thing” work-wise to call my own. When asked the question ‘what do you do?,’ I could always answer, and I always answered in the singular. “I’m an Assistant Professor.” “I’m a Business Owner.” I have never said, “I’m a wannabe writer, a wife, a business owner, a mother of 2 young children, a dabbler in art and design, and a scourer of estate sales.” In fact, now that I am all those things and no longer have a “work path,” I have avoided all situations where I’d have to answer the proverbial, “What do you do?” question. Truth be told, being without a designated career path is a bit like being Waldo in the zebra habitat at the zoo. Disconcerting.
So how do I encourage a hybrid career to my young children when I too struggle over the absence of the self-possession of a defined career, income, job title, or otherwise, meaningful work outside the home? Or when I yearn, just like my son, for the singular “I want to be an X”?
