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?