When Yaya was little, every afternoon she and I used to paint. It started with magic painting books. ( you apply water with a paint brush and the colours used to appear magically. http://www.amazon.co.uk/A4-Magic-Painting-Book/dp/1851283609) and as she grew older, we progressed to crayons, colour pencils and water colours.

Up until grade 7, she said she wanted to be an artist and live in Venice. I am not the kind of the parent who believe that my child must do either Medicine or Engineering. I believe they really should do what makes them happy. Venice is a really nice place to live and if my child chose to live there, all the better for me. I can make frequent trips to Venice ! I also told her that most artists don’t make much money while they are alive and that is still ok, so long as she can eat stale bread and cheese. ( Yes, she did roll her eyes)

I didn’t hear much about becoming an artist once she joined high school. Every now and then she would come to me and ask “Mom, what should I do when I grow up?” and my answer has always been “whatever you want, the world is yours to conquer” which often elicited the response ” you are of no help” and few more eye rolling.

Honestly, I would have liked her to be in the foreign services. She loves to travel, speaks a lot of languages and is very strong willed and gets what she wants. But that is my opinion and I prefer to keep it to myself.

Yesterday she came to me and told me ” Mom, I think I want to do environmental law ”

It was something totally unexpected. I didn’t even think she wanted to do law.

I am happy that she is thinking about what she wants to do and is free of pressure from her parents. Every child deserves that freedom.