What Do You Want to Be?

by Margaret Bidinotto

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a question my daughter, Katrina, has heard countless times from adults unsure of how to start a conversation with a six-year-old. Like most children her age, she has a different answer for each questioner -- artist, dancer, teacher, bus driver, actress, mother, store owner -- you name it, she's going to be it.

We adults smile to ourselves at the infinite variety and scope of our children's ambitions. But we sometimes fail to realize that an idea, vital to the existence of liberty, is taking root in their young minds...an idea that we instill almost accidentally, and then spend years inadvertently destroying.

"What do you want to be?" is not a universal question. Many if not most societies have been structured for sons to follow in their fathers' footsteps, while daughters repeat the lives of their mothers. Individuals have few choices to make and rarely expect any. Even in the early years of this country, choices, if not ambitions, were often severely limited by the primitive conditions of the society. But with ever-increasing wealth and well-being, men's options grew, and "What do you want to be?" became a valid and meaningful question.

By asking them what they want to be, we create in children the expectation that they will choose their own roles in life. Lacking maturity, children seldom fix upon one goal; but then, rarely do they question the belief that they someday will. Their observations of what appear to be fascinating adult occupations bring out a natural eagerness to be involved, and they look forward to that magical day when they will get to "pick for real."

Human beings need to make choices, to function and thrive as their nature designed them to do. Liberty is the only condition under which legitimate decisions can be made. But for liberty to survive, people must expect -- and, more importantly, want -- to make choices. The individual who does not expect to make choices, or who does not want to do so, is in no position to defend liberty, or his own individual humanity.

It is ironic, then, that this country, full of opportunity, has so many well-intentioned naysayers. Doting aunts tell a young person, "you can't do that," while concerned uncles grumble, "nobody's done that before." Exasperated teachers tell him to "get serious and grow up," as his parents lecture him to "come down to earth and be realistic."

By the time he is in his late teens, a person has heard enough adult exhortations to convince him that his goals and ambitions were foolish and nonsensical. By the time he is in his early twenties, he's been exposed to enough adults complaining about their "lot" in life, shirking their work, playing the lottery and griping about their "lousy luck," to be convinced that life is just a crap shoot with overwhelming odds. It is the rare individual who makes it to adulthood with his youthful ambitions intact.

Most would agree that it would be the height of cruelty to tell a starving child, "just step into this room and you'll have all you can eat" -- only to have him walk into an empty room. No one would be surprised if the child became cynical or bitter. Nor should it come as a surprise when young people, once promised a rich diet of unfettered choice, become cynics when force-fed the thin gruel of pragmatism and determinism.

These young cynics can only look back on their childhood ambitions with nostalgic longing and, eventually, pain. They will feel somewhat guilty as a small reproachful voice inside tells them they should have stuck to their goals; but as time progresses, they will convince themselves that they "couldn't help it," that circumstances rule their lives and that they don't want to make their own decisions. Then, they will eagerly embrace any collective that will absolve their guilt and offer to relieve them of the personal responsibility of deciding their own fate. Finally, in time, they will work to relieve others of that same burden.

The next time a breathless six-year-old bubbles enthusiastically about his plans to be "a doctor, then a veterinarian, and then a singer," check your amusement and offer him warm approval instead. Share your own dreams and ambitions with the next teenager you encounter and encourage him to strengthen, not repress, his own interests. Tell him to close his ears to the voices preaching pragmatism and determinism, and ask him instead: "What do you want to be?"