(((Apologies for having two posts one after another--sorry!)))

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a clothes designer, which, frankly, I would be horrible at... it was only about 30 years later that I realized that what I really wanted was to be a fabric designer - patterns for fabric. I'd still love to do that, but wouldn't have any idea how to go about getting that kind of work.

The next thing I wanted to be was a writer/journalist, and I did end up becoming that (as well as editor) until we moved to Greece. Computers weren't a thing when I was young, but if they were, I probably would have wanted to do programming or site design. I do site design now (as a freelancer), at least, so you might say that this is an "imaginary childhood" ambition fulfilled.

funny... I hadn't thought of this in ages, but - wow - I remember now having boxes and boxes of paper dolls that I made (paper) clothes for. Do kids still do that anymore? Or is it all online paper dolls now?

I'll get back to you in ten years or so.
I can tell you that I'm majoring in journalism now, which is what I always thought I wanted to do.
I'm not so sure of it now.

I'm a grown-ass man!

Sorry, I just love saying that.

I wanted to be a firetruck. There were talks with General Motors among others, but ultimately nothing could be worked out.

First I wanted to be an ichthyologist after I read Eugenie Clark's autobiography. Not having much of a knack for science or swimming kind of put the kybosh on that. Then when I was about 13 I decided I wanted to be a ballet dancer. That lasted until I realized I had started way too late and that there were some very mean people in the ballet world. After that I have never wanted to do anything in particular. My present job is proofreading legislation, and I expect I'll be doing that until I retire in about 20 more years. But, I still watch a lot of ballet, and I have a tank of sea monkeys on my desk at work. :)

Oh, I wanted to be all sorts of things growing up. A vet, a diplomat and a translator were the ones that immediately come to mind. I ended up a scientist, which was never the plan. Then again I never planned on getting married, never planned on living in the USA and never planned on living any one place more than 5 years. So much for that.

I wanted to be a ballet dancer too, but was hampered by being short, fat and mocked by my sister. At 16 I got my first job in a law firm and thought "I could do that". For a few years I was a secretary. My skills were fine, but my attitude sucked. Eventually I did become a lawyer. I'm still sort of a lawyer now. The job I have now is a niche part of the law, it suits me perfectly.

I wanted to be a cowboy, a doctor, or an astronaut. I really liked science, astronomy and geometry and making things. Spent a lot of time building tree houses and doing experiments like seeing what would happen if I fed crackers into the backside of a fan. Also, examining bugs close up to see how they worked, and other things like helping my Dad build our first color TV.

Astronomy was my original major in college, which changed after first semester when I realized I had no patience for physics and chemistry. I settled on psychology b/c it was still a science, and it had interesting things like designing blind & double blind studies, statistical analysis, and a link to physiological studies like neurobiology.

Fast forward about 20 years, after being in commercial architectural design and front end web design for most of that time. I'm teaching and researching creative problem solving - my most interesting clients so far have been aerospace engineers and also product designers with General Mills. So I'm still making things, but there is also a psychological angle to it. It took me 43 years to find it, but I'm happy, I'm good at it, and it is fun as hell!!

Sorry for the long ass answer!

When I was VERY young, I wanted to be an astronaut. I was four years old when I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on TV... that's probably the reason I'm still a space freak, even as an adult.

In my teens I wanted to be a film director. I didn't really decide on journalism until I was already in college. I've worked in print, radio, and now TV, which isn't quite the same as being the next David Lynch, but at least I get to tell stories with video, so that's something. :)

What did you want to be growing up, and what are you now?

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. The a writer. Then a rockstar. Then a music writer. Now my main goal is to make it to happy hour.

I currently work as a data entry clerk. I spent most of my life in retail doing nametag level shit. Careerwise, I haven't fulfilled any of the ambitions (read: pipedreams) that I set for myself, mainly because I am a lazy, self-pitying, drunken slob with a limited intellect. I also wanted to have a lot of adventures. I succeded there, sort of.

Jonmc--what is life without pipedreams, eh mate??

(I love listening to peoples stories and reading about where life has taken them. Growing up, you think one thing and—what was it that Tobias had said… something about having the monstrous illusion that you have the right to believe in your dreams, and that you take it so much for granted that you feel you have a right to it even before it has become a reality. And if anyone says otherwise… well, what do they know??

Thank you for sharing, and please keep them coming; I myself wanted to be something along the lines of a pilot or an astronaut, playing with my Lego sets all the time, and building these alien worlds and the spaceships that were required to reach there... then I fell in love with the movies, and wanted to become an actor (read: star, more than actor), and then in my later teens it sort of subsided to where I now would be so totally grateful if I could just get the chance to create something on celluloid, as a director/writer, but god knows if that's ever going to happen.

In the meanwhile, I plan to finish up my BA and probably start working at a BPO taking some of your calls perhaps:)

I myself wanted to be something along the lines of a pilot or an astronaut, playing with my Lego sets all the time, and building these alien worlds and the spaceships that were required to reach there

"You know, sometimes I wish I did a little more with my life instead of hanging out in front of places selling weed and shit. Like, maybe be an animal doctor. Why not me? I like seals and shit. Or maybe an astronaut. Yeah... be the first motherfucker to see a new galaxy, or find a new alien lifeform... and fuck it. People would be like, "There he goes. Homeboy fucked a martian once." - Jay

I wanted to be a number of different things when I was a child. I think my first ambition was to be famous so I could be on the Muppet Show. Then I wanted to be a teacher because my mother was one, then a detective because I loved detective stories, then a nurse, then a doctor, then when in eighth grade we had to submit an ambition to be printed under our pictures in the year book, I wrote "librarian or an author".

All through high school I had no idea what I wanted to do and was actually very worried about it. I didn't want to be a librarian (though I think I would have had I known more about the scope of a librarian's work), it was highly unlikely that I would ever earn a living as a writer, and I didn't know what else could be done with my English skills. (It never seemed to occur to me to do some sort of research.) Then when I was talking to my mother about it and simultaneously reading through a booklet listing all the post-secondary programs available alphabetically by subject ("What do you think of me being a brick layer, Mum?") I suddenly said, "Hey. Book and Magazine Editing!" and my mother said, "Yes!"

I got into that program despite the fact that I was applying two months past the deadline and there were over 400 applicants vying for 40 places. (The coordinator really loved me for some reason.) And now I've been working in publishing in Toronto for almost 13 years. I am happy with my work - I managed to stumble into a kind of work that was perfectly suited to me. My only regret is that I had a terrible time getting work those first few years and have made very little for someone with six years of post-secondary education. If I had been a less clueless a teenager I would have done my research and known about this in advance, and perhaps have done something else.

However, going forward, since I have paid my dues I intend to stay with editing and writing.

I wanted to own a restaurant. I became an engineer. Owning a restaurant would probably have been a bigger pain, but it doesn't matter now.

My son dropped out of college and is working at a Cracker Barrel. He's mentioned perhaps looking into restaurant management as a career; I can't argue with that.

I was a clueless teenager also. I knew I was going to college, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life until my senior year of high-school, and I was still unsure then. My sister and I were free-spirits and were floundering a bit. My mother suggested that I should become a nurse, and that my sister would be a great teacher. That's what we did. I have a bachelor's in nursing, and it has served me well. If I had it to do over again, I would of done something else. I don't know what, but something else. :)

(I kind of let go of my dream and I'm content with that, at least for now. However, I take great pleasure in helping my wife achieve her dream of becoming a teacher 25 years after the guidance counselor talked her out of it. And this summer, if she's accepted, she'll begin her masters degree ;-)

At various times during my childhood, I wanted to be a chef, a line cook, an astronaut, a professional musician, an author, a doctor (family practitioner), a physicist, or a cosmologist. Now, I'm an engineer.

Until I was eight, I wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot, because the most riveting moment of my life up to that time was meeting the Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, they were still flying the Grumman F11F Tiger then, and I built and painted a model of that plane in their livery, during one whole summer. But then, I got my first major eye exam, after flunking a screening eye test at school, and found out I was 20/400 in my good eye. So much for becoming a Naval aviator.

After that, I cycled through wanting to become a rocket scientist, an aerospace engineer, and for a short while, a nuclear engineer. I read a lot of math and science through my teens, and I got fascinated at various times by electronics, automobiles, and motorcycles. I rebuilt a large block Ford 430 cubic inch engine with my Dad and a friend of his the summer I was 15, and he and I both learned a lot. I built audio amplifiers and crystal radio sets. I hand ground an 8 inch reflector mirror from a Pyrex blank to 1/4 wavelength accuracy, the summer I was 16. The high school I donated that telescope to is still using it for student observations, I learned a couple summers ago. When I went away to college, I had a vague notion of becoming a marine biologist, but I was mainly trying to stay out of Vietnam and stop a bad war. And 35 years after I left college to be a father and a husband, I finally completed my degree, just because I always promised myself I would.

Over the last 35 years, I've done a lot of things for a living, including cooking, broadcast engineering, machinery sales and design, computer programming, and security related work, and I still do some of these things. But I also finally learned to SCUBA dive, and to fly, and I still drive into the dark countryside some nights, and set up a telescope, and look up.

What you become isn't just what it turns out you do for a living, even in America, where that is sometimes all too true.

paulsc, on my 44th birthday I did two things I always wanted to do - I had a tattoo and I signed up for SCUBA lessons. I've yet to complete the SCUBA course (two big surgeries interrupted it, then I met George and spent all my annual leave on the farm) but, ever since I watched The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau as a little kid I wanted to learn to dive.

When I was drinking I was full of big plans and dreams, none of which were ever fulfilled. That also applied to the little dreams too (all the movies, shows and exhibitions I planned to see, books I intended to read, restaurants I meant to try, etc.) Drinking just became everything. Everything. Until inside I became nothing.

Today I'm trying to make up for lost time. I still have some big dreams and the little ones are within reach on almost a daily basis.

You're awesome--each and every one of you... what else can i say:)

essexjan--I've lost a lot of time too (I'm 27 and am still yet to complete my undergraduate, which I will commence this year, god-willing--so here's to the both of us!

Oh essexjan, you just reminded me of my nature photographer phase. I wanted to work for either Cousteau's outfit or National Geographic.

Also, after reading Dispatches and other Vietnam jornalism books, I was briefly infatuated with the idea of being a gonzo war correspondent a la Tim Page.

I wanted to a) make cartoons (as in comic books) b) make TV commercials c) be superpowelful businesswoman in computing industry, like a female version of my dad but with much better outfits.

And I work in advertising, that is B). It's not at all as fun as I daydreamt it would be. So I'm still kinda pissed at myself that I didn't go the comix route - I was still studying it when I got my degrees at Parsons. My rational of not making a career out of that was that cartoonist are a bit like freelancers, yaknow, rare a steady paycheck. I figured I'm crap at that sort of thing, so I best get a job where I get a monthly salary.

So here I am, in advertising. Freelancing. DOH! The second choice job with the first choice's negative! Dang! And I was right, I'm crap at the money-thing.

You know, we did this once before, a long time ago, but I can't find the thread. Hmm. Anyway.

I never had the faintest clue what I wanted to be, growing up. I read all the time so I usually wanted to be whatever I was reading about, from a veterinarian to a marine biologist to an astronaut. All along I liked art class best. However, I score extremely well on standardized tests, so everyone thought I was some kind of academic genius and shouldn't be an artist (also, I can't draw.) I always, always loved museums and always kind of thought it would be cool to work in one.

I grew up. I was a wild teenager and got kicked out of lots of schools, then I got pregnant and had a baby and went to college, in that order. I majored in art (fuck not being able to draw. You're only as limited as you think you are. ;-) )and art history (that was my fallback. Art history is not a good fallback.) and worked in restaurants; I went back to school and almost got another degree in art education; I moved to New York and got a job in classical music management; I painted and made prints; I wrote 3/4 of a very bad novel; I did a lot of odd stuff in my 20s.

Then I answered an ad in Baltimore for an art museum education person and I have never really looked back. I went from museum education to doing PR & communications & special events in another museum and then to the museum where I work now, where there are three full time staff members and, since I'm not the curator or the educator, I do everything else. I do a little of, well, everything from volunteer management to events to PR to graphic design and I love it because for the most part it's not boring and I feel like I'm doing some good in the world, even if it's only making sure that odd little places with big glass cases full of rocks are still around and still open to fascinate that one oddball child who isn't quite sure what s/he wants to do when they grow up.

And when my life is going well, I also still paint and take pictures and make prints and weird little dioramas and write bad novelettes or at least a blog.

really young - a fireman. Probably because of the hats and getting to hang off the back of a moving truck (do firemen still do that, or did I make it up altogether?). I'm pretty sure an astronaut was in there somewhere as well.

young (5 maybe) - a trashman in the Bronx. The Bronx because of the Yankees (Reggie!) and you know - New York, and a trashman because I always had my head in the garbage (still do really), as well as getting to hang off the back of a moving truck.

5th grade - I was taking one of those career path tests that are supposed to help kids figure out what they want to be. I asked the teacher which category "comedian" was under and she laughed at me. I didn't understand why, but it was rather discouraging. She was a great teacher, but teachers should be careful not to laugh at kid's dreams.

6th/7th grade - Discovered heavy metal. Got a guitar and wanted to be a musician. That never went away.

After that - all sorts of things. Writer, filmmaker, activist, runner of a music label, artist, etc.

Now - it just seems I want to do it all. Whatever comes to me. Still doing music, taking some improv classes here and there, creating t-shirts, some writing for TV. It's weird - in a way I'm floundering, but try to stay focused and keep a "see what happens" attitude. What a dream it'd be to wake up and go wherever your mind takes you - one day writing some music for a movie, the next - designing a t-shirt, the next - writing a TV skit, the next - filming the skit, on and on...

I really want to just work for myself now. The thought that this will not happen makes me really sad. I'm so tired of wasting my energy for something I care so little about (web development for a consulting company - yawn).

Thanks for the question...

hellbient: If I ever get my wish, you can totally ride around hanging off the back, buddy.

The thing I wanted to be was an entomologist. I had a childhood obsession with everything creepy crawley. I'm no longer obsessed, but have no qualms about bugs or spiders I encounter (with the exception of House Centipedes, they're nasty). Then I wanted to be a nurse, and then a lawyer (because I like to argue).

Through all that, there was always the fairy tale fantasy of meeting the man of my dreams and living happily ever after. That is the only thing I wanted as a child that I'm still hoping for and working towards (and the only one I'm slose to reaching). I now want to be a career wife and mother. Sure, I'll work if I have to, but I don't care what job I have, as long as I have a family.

yeah mullacc, I'd love to ride you...

Oh, and I forgot, when I went to Catholic school (5th and 6th grades, even though I'm not Catholic), I thought about becoming a priest for awhile. That did not happen, as little boys really aren't my thing.

The burning feeling and the exultation I felt for dancing is the only latent aspiration I had till I was 12. I remember I was dreaming myself in funny dancing outfits (the disco kind, with uber-bell bottoms and tiaras), heavy makeup and jewelry. After that age I rarely dance in public but I take biweekly dance classes which really lift my spirits like nothing else in the whole world, the only constant thing the last 15 years in my life.

At 12 there was a turning point in a lot of areas in my life. At school, I fell in love with physics, we had started doing simple but very interesting experiments and had very communicative and attentive teachers. I knew then I wanted to become a physicist, which back then meant a teacher of physics. After that I always wanted to be a physicist/mathematician, which I am, sort of, today. Thankfully (for me and the students) I do not teach (I try hard not to teach) since I totally believe I suck lemons at it. But dance and music still bring out a totally different person in me.

I'm making a ginormous stereotype here, but from talking with NZers compared with Americans, it seems to me that waaay more Americans had a pretty fixed idea about what they wanted to do by the time they finished high school. Or, if they didn't, they were very worried about that fact. Most NZers I know took college to decide and were a lot more laid back. I started grad school for the whole reason that I liked science and wanted to do more of it, but I didn't really think about it too hard.

Just an observation.

gaspode, I know what you mean. But, I always thought that Americans were lucky they didn't have to decide what they wanted to be until while in college. In our educational system in Greece we pretty much had to decide at 17 when applying to go to college. If you applied and entered physics school for example you had to study phys/math and get a degree in that. No minors/majors, no change in fields etc unless you went back and took the exam to enter another school in college. That system (which still holds today and to my knowledge in many other European countries) has created a lot of professionally unhappy adults who, naturally, at 17 weren't sure what they wanted to be.

Ah yes, I had forgotten about that system. I work with a French woman who hates her field but felt that she was stuck with it, right from college. Fuck that.

Maybe NZers are all just lazy slackers.

Maybe NZers are all just lazy slackers.
Heh! I am moving to NZ, then. And I think everyone else should too.

Maybe NZers are all just lazy slackers.

Says the Ph. D.

When I was really little, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Then a GHOSTBUSTER (so I could marry Egon). In seventh grade, I decided I wanted to make ads. Now I do.

When I talk to people from my hometown, they always tell me I'm the only one who actually grew up to do what I said I would. I blame Darren Stevens of "Bewitched."

Too bad it's a suck job with terrible hours and bad pay, but hey, I accomplished it.

I also wanted to drive a Packard from the '30s, adopt a few children, have a pinball machine and a house full of pets. I managed the pets, the pinball machine and to have a kid of my (biologically) own, but I figure I have a few decades before I have to write off the Packard completely.

Being a grownup, even at its worse, is far better than being a kid, even at its best. I go to bed when I want, play video games in my freetime and eat gummy worms for dinner when I feel like it. Of course, I want to go to bed early, I have little time to play and I never feel like gummy worms for dinner, but knowing I could makes it all worth while.

When I was five, I wanted to be Diana Ross, Wonder Woman or Miss America when I grew up. I shit you not.

But when I was five, I was also writing stories. By the time I was in sixth grade, I wanted to be a journalist and novelist. When I was in seventh grade, I decided I would never be a writer, because writers are poor. Then I wanted to be a lawyer, a politician, a campaign manager, a speechwriter.

When I was 18, I accidentally got a job as an editorial assistant at a small newspaper.

I'm still a journalist, and I'm working on my first novel.

No luck on becoming Diana Ross, though. Or Miss America. As for Wonder Woman, I'm still working on my invisible plane.

I've known most of my life I was a writer.

Is "what do you do" considered a rude question in NZ and Oz the way it is in the UK?

I STILL want to be Miss America.

I wanted to be an editor for a long time. My father and I used to have conversations over dinner about how no one in his office could write a grammatically correct memo, and how he would never let things go out under his name until he had fixed all the passive voice and various things. I thought that was uber-cool, and I always liked both reading and the underlying mechanics of good writing. I wrote a bit myself, but I never wanted to do the creative writing thing. Editing always seemed more interesting.

So I got a degree in English, and did a fair amount of editing work, then ended up in a copywriting / editing / proofreading job that turned into more ad writing than anything else, which I both dislike and am bad at.

And by a few years ago I was dissatisfied that I wasn't doing something with my life that would benefit other people. I realized that the things that came to mind when I thought about that were all in the helping professions, and I realized that being a therapist sounded like my dream job, so I typed "How do I become a therapist" into Google and learned that I should go get my Master's in Counseling to become an MFT (Marriage and Family Therapist).

While applying to school I remembered that when I was in elementary school, all my friends used to sing a song called "Ask occhi!" (except with my real name) because they all came to me for advice and thought I gave good suggestions. I also realized, on writing my application, that all the things I love most about editing -- working with an author to help him find the "bones" of his story, to tease out the meaning and the themes, to clarify stuck points -- all apply equally to therapy, it's just spoken rather than written. It's also starting to dawn on me that my personality traits that were becoming liabilities in the corporate world -- introversion, a dislike of speaking up except in very kind diplomatic terms, wanting to listen and mull things over rather than come up with lots of brainstorming ideas immediately -- actually fit quite well into how I want to do therapy, and I'm suddenly getting complimented on these thing that my boss kept listing as negatives on my annual reviews.

So I'm in school now, and absolutely loving it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I've found my niche.

What did you want to be growing up, and what are you now?

something/useless

I wanted to be an astronaut. When I found out that my country (Australia) didn't have a space program, I was devastated, and just kind of drifted. In Oz, the college application process at the time was literally a two page form where you listed your preference 1-5 and if your score on the One Big Test was high enough, you got what you wanted, otherwise you were s.o.l. Apparently I marked down electronics engineering as one of the preferences, so that is what I studied, and I did get to build robots in my first job, so that was kinda cool.

But then everything went software. I liked computer programming, and that worked out for a while. I moved to the US and started my own business, which was something I always wanted to do. But then we built the interwebs (which was fun) and my industry was offshored (which was less fun *looks pointedly at hadjiboy*), so in despair I became a lawyery thing and now I help people patent their inventions (inventors are fun, leviathan kafkaesque bureaucracies are not).

Is "what do you do" considered a rude question in NZ and Oz the way it is in the UK?

Honestly? I have no idea. I'm often asked these sorts of social interaction questions about what life is like in NZ, and I have to say that I've never really been a grown-up in New Zealand. I mean, I didn't leave until I was 26, but I only ever hung out with other grad students and old friends. So yeah, I don't really have an answer for you.

It's rude to ask "what do you do?" in the UK?!? I didn't know that. *makes a note for future conversations w/ UKers*

Is "what do you do" considered a rude question in NZ and Oz the way it is in the UK?

Eh, I don't think most people in the UK would still consider that impolite. Three generations ago, perhaps.

I wanted to be a cop, teacher, photographer, writer, veterinarian, nurse (not a doctor, nurses are much cooler), cowgirl, lawyer.

I ended up doing basic clerical work and then moving up to a loan underwriter for a savings & loan (I started part-time in high school and worked there for 16 years). I moved to Canada in 2000 and temped for a couple years - clerical, data-entry, mail room clerk, help-desk flunky. I'm not working right now and don't know if I'll ever be able to go back (I have ..um.. issues, heh). I have a very tolerant husband and he's happy to have me at home. We have to economise a bit, but we're comfortable.

I still don't really want to know what I want to be when I grow up. There are jobs out there that I'd think I'd be happy doing but nothing really appeals to me as something I just have to do.

I wanted to be a veterinarian, a pre-school teacher, an artist, and a writer. I took some sort of test in 8th grade that told me I'd be good as an Occupational Therapist. I wish it had also included just what that entailed and what steps it would take to achieve it. Now it sounds like something I'd have enjoyed. I started working in the supermarket when I was 16. I was still there when I took college courses for childhood education. I tried life as a pre-school teaching assistant (and I loved it) but teaching was just not for me. Then my supermarket offered me full-time to come back, at triple what I was making at the nursery school, and I've been there ever since. I've done quite a few departments in my time, and I'm currently in the meat room as a wrapper. And I like it. I have great customers, great friends and coworkers, and my days fly by. Plus, it's flexible enough for me not to miss my kids' school presentations and such. I did always want kids, four, in fact. I picked the wrong man to have my two with, and got two bonus kids when I met my second husband. So I actually got my four!