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.
Hi ths post brought to mind a recent incident …we were at the petrol pump refilling and my lil girl asked amma do girls work at pumps? and when i said yes … she said ok that’s what i want to be when i grow up.. ill work at pumps! So I said , why not! 🙂 All the while i couldnt but help think that if some one else probably from the older generation were with us they would have immediately snubbed the idea right then and there. few days later she found out from somewhere… no she gathered it on her own that people at pumps have to work late hours and so she may not like the idea at all ….. so she decided she’ll wait for some other job ha ha!
I admire you for the way you bring up your kids…
Much as u want ur child to be well off in life its also imp to let them figure out on their own what they would want to do with their life… as you rightly concluded “EVERY CHILD DESERVES THAT FREEEDOM”.
Martha: At one time my son wanted to be the car wash guy..