What do you want to be when you grow up?
For some reason this is a common question young adults/adults ask kids. Why is that? There is so much pressure and weight in that question. As an adult are you prepared to follow-up that question with mentoring and modeling a child to achieve their dreams?
Recently I posed this question to a child the age of seven. Their response was to be a YouTube influencer. I said “okay, cool! Why do you want to do that?” They said “you get to be famous and make lots of money”. I followed that statement with, “Is that important to you?” “What does that look like now, in the future?” and “How do you start?” …I received quite the look and no response.
Back in the days of my youth I had my heart set on working as an animator at Disney. Around this time the magic of animation was forging new paths in cinematic beauty. “The Little Mermaid “ and “Beauty and the Beast “ were masterpieces dazzling the screen and home on vhs tapes with new methods and rich colors. Granted I had no idea how the animation process worked other than drawing the same image over and over in micro movements like a flip book.
So I practiced. Drawing characters from vhs covers, pausing movies to see characters, faces, and emotions. Not to mention the fun game my sister and I would play randomly pausing Disney movies to laugh at the hilarious faces characters make. (You should try it sometime, it will tickle your belly with childlike laughter)
Where was I, oh yes, practicing. So I was drawing and drawing and drawing…who was I drawing for? I had no idea. This art had no way to get in front of eyes to even be considered to be on the Disney team. I gave away a lot of my practice drawings to friends at school and family members. That was the cool thing to do back then, trade art and pass notes. We did not have the means to afford artistic training, there was not an animation mentor in the area, and I was too young to go to art college. Plus, no one knew the steps it would take to even get to that point. After all I lived in Ohio and the animation studio was in Florida.
I had my heart set on certain things when I was young. I knew I was going to play the flute, I still practice to this day. I also knew I was going to be an artist. <— notice how that changed from Disney animator.
There is beauty in being a child. Dreaming, playing, imagining. The world is your oyster and the sky is the limit. So when do we start putting limits on youth?
Art is not a career because it is taught it is not where the money is. This is a statement I hear all too often today. I love debating it! Fortunately in my youth no one stifled these dreams. I never heard “you will never make any money” and I had never heard the phrase “starving artist”. Everyone in my family was a teacher/farmer, my grandfather was a farmer,lineman/military. So the knowledge in my next steps as an artist were narrow, especially in my youth.
Through grade school I learned that certain careers are only what is guaranteed money. Medical, law, teaching, police, and military were really the only ways to survive in life and be “successful”. You needed to go to college in order to make anything of yourself or into the military. Nothing was ever said about what brings you joy or happiness (in no way am I stating that you cannot be happy in one of these admirable fields of work, I know so many who love and are designed for these paths.)
"If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." I have had multiple jobs and careers. Sometimes all at the same time. I have rolled pretzels, mowed lawns, taught school, mixed paint, worked for the government, construction, administrative work, graphic design, coaching …..and the list goes on. I believe that every step in my life’s work has contributed to my knowledge and success today as a full time artist. It hasn’t been easy, but I believe anything worth having is worth working hard for.
Currently, I ask adults what they want to be when they grow up and youth what they aspire to be.
Doing what you love as your career will be the most difficult path. But it is possible. And it looks different for every single person.