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Email a FriendI am with you on this. I’ve always been annoyed by it, too. A friend who has three kids and I were talking about this with another woman who doesn’t have any kids, and we too moms concluded that it’s just setting kids up for failure to tell them they can be anything they want to be. The simple fact is that I’m not a good athlete, and no matter how much I want to, I will never play for the NBA. I am, however, good at school, so years of grad school and research and studying worked for me, and I have been successful. We agreed that a better message would be that God has given us all special gifts and that we should work with those gifts to use them the best way possible. If sports is your thing, good. But maybe it’s school. Maybe it’s mechanics. (Of course, the third woman in this conversation—the one without kids—listened to us in horror and objected that we were squelching our children’s dreams…)
Inspiring Kids to Dream Big
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Monday, July 13, 2009 3:27 PM
We checked out a book from the library (Elmo’s World: Doctors!). Camilla likes it; I’m mostly ambivalent about it.
But at the end, after a bunch of information about doctors and what they do, the doctor “star” of the book says, “You can be a doctor if you want to, Elmo!” Then the nurse, smiling winningly, says to the book’s impressionable young readers, “And so can you!”
This bothers me.
I don’t expect a book for small children to say straight out, “You can be a doctor… if you apply yourself, and get good grades, and spend half of college studying for the MCAT while your friends are having fun, and work yourself to exhaustion during medical school and residency, and basically have no free time until you’re twenty-eight.” I would really *enjoy* it if a children’s book said that, but I don’t expect it.
No, it bothers me because it’s indicative of an overall trend. I attended thirteen years of public school, and I know from experience that encouragement-without-realism is the name of the self-esteem-building game.
When I was in middle school, half the girls in my class wanted to be marine biologists. Not because they had any idea what marine biologists do, but because all the other girls wanted to be one. It sounded cool!
The teachers were so busy inspiring us to dream big that no one bothered to clarify that marine biologists are scientists that study water-dwelling organisms. There was never a mention of how much science the training to become a marine biologist would surely involve.
When I was in high school, one teacher had us research the schooling that various popular careers actually required. (I think this is when most of my classmates realized they didn’t want to be marine biologists after all!) But the rest of them concentrated on encouraging us to think about what we would like to do, with no reference to what it would take to get there.
Just like in the Elmo book about doctors, the general idea was that if you wanted it, you could be it.
Now, I think it’s great to tell kids that most things are within their reach if they work hard enough. But my perception is that the “if you work hard enough” part of that proposition has mostly been dropped in popular society.
It leads to situations like the case of a teenaged boy I knew a few years ago. He planned to be an engineer. He was also failing half his classes because he couldn’t be bothered to turn in his schoolwork. He saw no disconnect between his goals and his behavior.
Encouragement is a wonderful thing. But I think that the encouragement that we give kids these days could benefit from a healthy dose of realism.
So for now, when I read Camilla the Doctors! book, I read the last part of the book, “You can be a doctor if you really, really want to.” When she gets older, I’ll add the stuff about the MCAT and the residency.
How do you think we should strike the balance between encouragement and realism with our kids?
Comments
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On a related note, I dislike how kids are all expected to attend college to be successful when many would be better off - happier, more successful, and using their God-given talents - if they studied a trade, entered the military service, etc.
I agree! My husband and I are college teachers, and I can tell you first hand that there are some students who absolutely do not belong in college—they aren’t happy, don’t know why they’re there, and would much rather be doing something else. Most of my students seem to be in college because it’s 13th grade and they finished 12th grade. (I had a friend in college who became severely depressed when he was in this situation, but became much happier when he dropped out and became a groundskeeper. He went back to school years later when he was ready for it and is a teacher now!)
We also agree. Who knows what God will call our children to be/do? College, marriage, trade school, a religious vocation? Our biggest prayer is that they seek His will in the matter! But when I try to tell my folks this (who were insistent that my siblings & I all go to college), it doesn’t sit so well. I think they are equating college = success = happiness…as if that is the only equation that matters. How do others out there approach this with their parents?
Patricia, I think you make an excellent point. Your mention of religious vocations brings up an important piece of information to remember as well. I have known a handful of young women who so desperately would like to enter religious life, but almost all convents turn down women with student loan debt. Most religious sisters don’t have income to pay their loans, so if it was the woman’s true heart’s desire to enter, it would have been better off for her to have not bothered with college!
I also grew up being told college was the only way. I’m glad to have had my eyes opened since then.
I spent a number of years teaching college students who were “non-traditional”—meaning they were older than 24, sometimes a lot older. And they were mostly great: motivated, disciplined, and usually clear on the importance of hard work to benefit others (their kids, spouse, etc.) It’s a broad generalization, of course, but very often older students take much better advantage of the opportunities outside the classroom than a teenager does. So from that perspective, going to college as an experienced adult doesn’t seem like an automatic disaster by any means.
The down side is that an adult entering college usually has seriously limited options of where they can study because they can’t relocate. Community colleges vary a great deal, and if an adult student doesn’t already live in a large city, they may have distressingly few options.
Amen! Boys Town, when I was teaching there, had all the seniors read a little piece with three bits of advice. One was to read regularly, one I have forgotten, and one was that you cannot, in fact, be whatever you want to be. There will always be limitations, no matter who you are, and there is no way to erase that fact - so do the best you can and find ways to be happy with *your* talents, income, time, etc. instead of always wishing to be someone else or never doing anything b/c “it’s not my *dream* job.”
Semi-relatedly, my dh had a teacher in high school who insisted to all her students that she could do anything (yes, anything) better than any man (yes, any man) simply b/c she was a woman. Both feminism and self-esteem gone completely haywire… though if she’s right I am really looking forward to someday listening to a composition more marvelous than any by Beethoven while I read a book far better than anything by Shakespeare and take occasional glances up at a print of a painting lovelier than any by Monet. And then I can turn on the tv and watch her play way better football than [insert fave player’s name here].
I teach high school students, and I agree that teachers tend to support that idea of “dream it, achieve it” without really helping students understand what it takes to get there. I also agree that not all students should go to college ever or maybe not right away. Adults should allow little kids to dream big, but as they get to middle school, help them shape their talents and help them determine what they really enjoy and what they can do well…and then pray a lot and go from there.
That whole “you can be whatever you want to be” bit really did a number on me. I accepted it, hook, line, and sinker from teachers and parents.
The fact of the matter is that we can NOT be whatever WE want to be. We will only have *joy* when we become who our Lord wants us to be!
I totally agree that this message is wrong, and I will not use it on my children. God has given us purpose in our lives, and even though sometimes the purpose doesn’t immediately look like something we “want,” it will ultimately give us the greatest happiness and fulfillment.
With my children, I’d like to encourage them to pursue their interests and pray, pray, pray that God will reveal to them what it is that they need to work to achieve.
I agree! College is so often not the right choice for students, especially directly after high school. My parents pushed my sister and me into college without any break following high school. It was right for me, but she was not ready. College for her turned into one long party, and she was left without a career path and with thousands of dollars in loans. She drifted for several years afterwards, found a job she hated, and eventually returned to school, but has piled the second trip’s loans onto the first, and is heavily in debt.
I have to say I disagree. I was raised by a somewhat crazy feminist mother who constantly told us that we could be anything we wanted to be (whether she acutally believed it is another matter). I was shocked when I discovered that my then-boyfriend had NEVER had anyone say that to him. I thought it was the saddest thing in the world. It may not be the be all and end all, but it’s important not to limit children by what you don’t tell them. Yes, it takes hard work. Yes, many of us (myself included) have to follow difficult, painful paths to achieve our dreams. But it is possible. That’s what matters.
I think what most of us are saying is that we should encourage our kids, but not give them the idea that they really can do anything or everything they want. (Which is ironic, because most teenagers, in my experience working with them, don’t really know what they want). Many parents tell their kids these things and then their kids feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. I see this as a high school teacher. So many students are unsure of what they really want, but they “know” they have to go to college or they “have” to do something else that is not quite right for them because they don’t want to let parents down. Really, we want our kids to dream and set goals, but also to realize that their own desires are just part of the picture; we want our kids to realize, just like we all, hopefully, realize, that our lives are not our own: we are to live as God wants us to, which means that we may not always do what we want because we realize we are called to do what God wants. It’s just about helping find a balance: help kids dream, but also reflect and grow in other ways so that an unrealistic dream (like when I, who hated biology and chem, thought I should go to medical school?!) is eventually set aside for something that is really God’s vocation for us. My point (sorry this is sort of rambling): There has to be balance between dreaming and reality and we can’t set our kids up to rely on just dreams or just the often harsh realities of the world.
This is all very interesting to me. My husband and I have both felt for a long time a frustration with how our society, and some family members, tend to put tooooooo much weight on “success.” My husband, now grown, has faced and finally battled the pressure he and his family put on him for years to achieve great things. In an effort to build his self esteem he would be told things (even recently) like “You’ll be the top of that company in a year- you’ve got it in you.” So much so that is he’s corrected by a boss it hurts that much more deeply b/c he feels like a failure, like he’s letting the world down, and his family down, when really its not that big of a deal. We often discuss how we want the MAIN message we send our kids to be, in regards to what they “be” when they “grow up,” 2 things:
1) That God does not expect them to be successful, but to be faithful (Blessed Teresa of Calcutta)
2) That God gave them special talents and whatever they do they should give him glory by using them.
Its hard when our society puts such strong pressure on children as young as 2 even! What they “HAVE” to be learning in order to “Get into the best preschool, the best kindergarden, the best elementary school…” So much pressure for such small and innocent brains!
I guess I’m in the minority here. The problem isn’t the book. The problem is when parents (and to a lesser extent, teachers) don’t take the time to discuss the means to achieving lofty goals with the children in an age appropriate way. A preschool Elmo book is not the place to discuss the long, often discouraging path to becoming a doctor, but when parents continue to encourage their children to dream big without a healthy dose of reality into middle school and beyond, there is a problem.
I agree there needs to be a balance between the ‘you can do it!!” and realism. I have two older boys. Both want to be pilots. For the older it is a possibility, with a lot of hard work he may be able to attain the AF Academy appointment he desires (he has back up plans if it doesn’t happen). We have even gotten him a math tutor to give him a leg up (as a rising freshman) and a meet with the AF academy local rep and pretty much every choice he makes right now academically and extra-curricularly is geared toward application to the USAFA. My other son is autistic. He will never be a naval aviator. Should we plaster smiles on our faces and tell him “Dream big. Work hard.” or tell him the truth and let him find another, attainable, dream. It breaks my heart that I. will not be what he wants but reality is reality. He will not turn into midshipman material just because he wants to. Aviation is his dream, we will do everything we can to find him a vocation in aviation, but one that is attainable with hard work not one destined for disappointment and failure no matter what.
Now my little ones who want to be ballerinas, singers, nuns, vets, nurses, doctors, pet store owners, horse trainers etc….all the different things that fickle little kids dream of…that is different.
I have another viewpoint. My husband always wanted to build buildings. In public high school he was discouraged every step of the way. He is an intelligent man, but he worked slowly on his school work. The high school counselor insisted that he could only be a draftsman. Once he started school along those lines, he ditched it quickly and started classes in construction management. He is now vice president of construction for a commercial real estate developer. He didn’t even finish college because his mother became sick. I think there is a combination of interest and WHERE GOD wanted him.
Mary, I totally agree with you. I think it’s interesting when a child has an idea of what he or she wants to do. Where does that come from? I remember as a child we were in a department store and I saw a professional woman obviously on her way home from the office and I said to my mom “I want to work in an office when I grow up and wear a suit and high heels” Sure enough, that’s what I did. My mother never worked in an office, my dad was a teacher. None of my friends had mothers who worked outside the home. I knew that I had to go to college and get my degree and find a job in an office. Kids dreams don’t have to be insurmountable, most of them are very modest. But the important thing, is to encourage your children and to accept if they want to do something that isn’t a part of your world. Of course, if one of my kids wants to be a tatoo artist, I may have to eat my words!
C.S. Lewis talks about this very concept in the book ‘The Screwtape Letters’. From Letter II, “The Enemy allows this disappointmnet to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by ‘Stories from the Odyssey’ buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration and laborious doing…Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to do it on their own.” (The book is written from the perspective of a devil advising another on how to turn a human away from God.)
The point is everyone, adults included, are faced with the challenge of overcoming the inital blast of reality that inevitably hits once the excitement of dreaming wears off. We must then decide whether to continue to pursue the dream, or stop short because the laborious doing is just that - laborious. The problem with our society is that we place entirely too much emphasis on the aspirational dreaming. The dreaming feels good because it allows us to believe that we can be bigger and better. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with dreaming. The problem arises when we, as a society, almost refuse to talk about the laborious doing because it will/may cause someone who was dreaming to cease under the awareness that at some point they will have to cease just dreaming and “do it on their own”. They can not be carried by “mere affections and habits”. I believe children should be allowed to dream; it is essential to being a child. But when there is no value placed on the integrity of work and the benefit of lessons learned from the failures we will encounter, we create a generation that is stuck in the dreaming. It is a failure on our part as parents if we do not set up our home that allows children to have responsibilities from which they can gain a sense of accomplishment.
I was definitely raised by a 70’s-liberated-feminist playing the “Free to be You and Me” tape. I went to a good college because I was expected to. I worked for 2 years, then quit to stay home with my kids and it took me a long time to get past the feeling that I was letting down my mom and females everywhere because I didn’t get a Master’s degree and wasn’t even working out of the home anymore. Now I see friends in their residencies, working a million hours a week, none of whom have kids yet, and I am so grateful I didn’t feel the need to be a doctor 10 years ago and leave myself in a place where I felt I was financially and culturally obligated to put family as a low priority.
So for me, I wish the Elmo book had in small print on the last page: If you choose this profession, you will be locking in your next 15 years in such a way that career will have to come before family. Carefully consider your priorities before going down that path.
My parents encouraged me to be whatever it was that I wanted to be. Of course, a dancer didn’t quite fit into that. LOL With my oldest daughter, that is what she wants to do. My husband and I have decided to let her persue it in college. After much prayer and discussion, why should we stifle what is obviously a God given talent. She wants to be a dance teacher, after she takes her shot at being a dancer. We are going to give her the tools that she needs, or at least help her with those tools, to attain her goals.
Our second daughter wants to be a veteranarian. She knows how much schooling is going to go into this. She is in 4H and is working on raising her second pig for a market sale. We have talked about other options that are out there. She knows that it is up to her to get the grades that she needs to get into vet school after her undergrad work.
Our eight and our nine year olds think that they might like to be a dentist and someone in the Army. We have discussed how much schooling a dentist needs and what life is like in the Army (my husband was in).
I agree with Stephanie about the labor that is required for certain things in life. I think part of the problem is that Americans want things done right now. Some people wont do the science/math/engineering paths because of the time that is required. We are top heavy with liberal arts majors with a deficit of science people.
And, I agree that not all people are college material. I was just talking with a friend who said his company needs airplane mechanics. He said that within two years there is going to be a serious shortage.
And, at the very end of it all, I never dreamed that I would be a SAHM much less one who homeschools. Even though I loved being a dental assistant, I will take being at home with my kids any day. 
I so strongly dislike this message that “you can be anything you want to be”, I’ve been known to interrupt my children’s television programming to insert my own disclaimers. I would not read the Elmo book on principal or if I did, my eye rolling would be heard the next county over and I’d be weighing how far to go with the disclaimer (will the 2yo even notice if I add in “with a lot of hard work”?).
Yes, we listen to our children dream and we love that. We feel that childhood is an important time to explore the many jobs that create our world and the people who inspire us. Hey, I bet I’m the only mom on the block who had a preteen son cheering for the garbage men (seriously, he thought they totally rocked and I’m sure they thought he was heckling them SIGH ~ I just pretended he wasn’t MY child ~ but who knows, perhaps a future in waste management?). We do field trips everywhere and see how the world works around us. We do not value a doctor more than a garbage man or a fireman or a mother or a priest. Every moral occupation has great value. And it really got under my skin that the extended family were all over my teens regarding diving right into college (I had barely gotten my higher education phobic 15yo to consider a trade school so back off people!)
In casual conversation, a well known topic is the concept of serving God in whatever job we have (including childhood!). Our kids are naturally curious and want to know how things work, what jobs entail, etc. I think by hearing the education or training required and/or the sacrifice required, it only adds to the value of the profession.
The reason I am so passionate about this is because I knew it was bologna when i was a child. I *knew* I couldn’t be anything I wanted to be. I could never be a man (no matter what surgeries are now available) if I so desired, which I didn’t for the record but I figured that was one of those hypotheticals. I knew that only a very limited number of people will ever be President of the US and I wasn’t likely to pursue the political career required to get me there (even if I did think I’d do a better job than whoever was President back then). I knew I didn’t have the money to get the education required to be a world class surgeon nor the brains to be an accountant. And I knew I’d never be a child in the middle of a ton of siblings no matter how I wanted that.
As an adult, my feelings on this topic have only been ratified. I have many friends whose husbands took to heart this idea that they could be anything they wanted to be and it crushed them when it didn’t work out. They struggle with jobs they hate and feel cheated because they were sold the idea that “you will have a job you love so much it won’t feel like work”. More bologne. Most people I know don’t love their jobs. There are the blessed ones who do. But the rest of us have to live in the real world taking the jobs we can get and doing our best to support our families.
It’s great to have dreams. There just has to be a balance. “Anything we want to be” just leads too closely to the concept of “anything we want to do” and that is the anthem of our society. Nothing is forbidden, nothing is sinful, nothing is out of our reach. I definitely prefer the message ... work hard at whatever task is placed before you, do it for God and follow your dreams with much prayer and perseverance. All diced into bite sized pieces according to age, of course.
One of my most vivid memories from (Ann Arbor public) high school was the day I attended an empowering-girls-young-feminists afterschool meeting of some sort so I could get a ride home with a friend. I don’t remember the discussion topic, but I’m pretty sure it was something along the “you can be anything you want to be” lines.
What I do remember is having it suddenly hit home, like a punch in the stomach, that it wasn’t true - that I couldn’t. That somehow, for my whole life up until that afternoon, I’d had full-time motherhood as a dream in one half of my brain, and investing my life in a career as a dream in the other half of my brain.
I had never before looked squarely at the fact that I couldn’t invest all of my time, all of myself, in both motherhood and a career simultaneously.
I also remember the peculiar, blunt way that it struck me - that men don’t have to make a choice between fatherhood and a career - they can have both without a qualm; they have wives. I would have a husband, though - and even if he were a stay-at-home dad, it wouldn’t fulfill my dreams of full-time motherhood. I would have to choose.
In no way am I criticizing mothers who work outside of the home. Nor am I saying that fathers are less invested in their children - I don’t think I’ve met a more devoted father than my husband!
I just remember the sensation of feeling like feminism had fed me a lie for my whole life until that point - that I could have it all, all at once; that I’d never have to choose.
This converstion is fascinating and I have enjoyed reading all your comments. Amy F, you nailed it, we were totally fed the Free to Be You and Me propaganda from the youngest ages (“ladies first”, it’s so ironic). It’s my mother’s greatest shame that my sister and I are both conservative republicans, that my sister stays home with her kids (and is a Great Mom) and that I don’t have any kids cause I chose career and not to “have it all.” Thanks for the great discussion.
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