“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“What do you want to do later in life?”
These are questions that currently consume our household since my niece is entering her tenth grade and we need to figure out what subjects she should be taking in her eleventh and twelfth grades.
“Not Math.” This was my niece’s surly contribution to the conversation.“I’ll study anything but Math.”
When we prodded further about what she’d like to do later in life, she shrugged and went back to typing furiously into her phone.
“I want to be a horse carriage driver, mama.” Z piped up from next to me.
“A horse carriage driver?” Amused, I turned to her. “Any particular reason?”
“I want to take care of the horse and make sure no one can hit him.”
Life was simpler at that age, I thought. Now, we had to stress about which stream to choose, what subjects, which college, postgraduate studies, whether our passions would be a financially stable choice later in life, and were we even able to choose our passion or did we have to choose the more sensible option?
As my niece wandered over to say she was considering Interior Design as an option and we tried to research the subjects she’d need to study for it and the schools she should look at for 11th grade that offered subjects on art and design, I thought that maybe being a horse carriage driver because you wanted to be kind to animals was the perfect ambition in life to have.
Except that, fifteen minutes later, Z decided she wanted to be a fairy. We can work with that…. Anybody know where I can source some wings?It might be easier than finding a school that didn’t focus on science and commerce in this country.
