What will you be when you grow up? – Mummascribbles

Sometimes when I look at Zach, I can’t help wondering what he’ll grow up to be. He’s too young to tell me at the moment but I have no doubt that if he could, he would be something like an astronaut, fireman or digger – the usual toddler job. But I do wonder what will he be. A lawyer, a builder, an office worker? We grow up working our way through several job aspirations – some a bit stranger than others!

The youngest I can remember thinking about what I wanted to be was a teacher at the age of about seven. I had the usual blackboard that I just loved writing on and I used to pretend that I had a room full of children (that was usually a line of teddies) that I would ‘teach’!

A while after that, probably when I was about 10, I changed my career track to being a librarian. I was fascinated with libraries even though I was rubbish in them because you had to be quiet and I wasn’t very good at that! The thing I most loved though was the date stamp. It made the most fantastic noise and I always wanted to have a go, hence I wanted to work in a library where they used them all the time!

Not long after that, I wanted to be a checkout operator because of the scanner. When we used to get home from our weekly shopping trip, I would ‘scan’ everything over the top of the cooker before it went into the cupboards (yep, I just admitted that!). It was an electric hob and had the little rectangle warning light that would come on while it was hot – that was my little scanner! I used to drive my mum and dad crazy because unpacking took a whole lot longer when I was around!

Roll on a few years and reading through the then latest edition of Smash Hits magazine, I decided I wanted to be a magazine journalist. I must have known in my head that I would be terrible at that job as rather than specialising in journalism at university, I went for film, tv and radio studies. While I was at uni, I worked on the checkouts in the local supermarket – bam, one life ambition ticked!

Upon leaving university, I worked in another supermarket in an office based role but I also got to use the checkouts which were far better ones than the other supermarket I’d worked in! I felt like I’d won big time!

I wasn’t in that job long before I got myself into a proper office and guess what? They had one of those library date stamps that I got to use every day for a few months. Life ambition number two ticked!

And so I find myself now working as an event manager – not the job I thought I’d end up in but nevertheless a job I enjoy. There is however a constant nagging in my head that there is only one of my boxes that hasn’t been ticked and certainly since becoming a mum, I wished I’d decided to stick with my first love and become a teacher. That, or a midwife.

Maybe one day a career change will be on the cards. I would love to go back and re-train but sadly finances do not allow for such things at this stage of my life.

I hope that Zach fulfills his dreams like I did as he grows up…whether it’s becoming a pilot or scanning a tin of beans and that he doesn’t look back thinking I wish I’d done that instead!!

What did you want to be when you were growing up and what did you end up as? I’d love to hear your stories 🙂

Are your children at the age yet where they have told you what they want to be? What are their current dreams?