Wednesday, March 3, 2010

"When You Grow Up"

For some reason adults often ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. Since we realize most children and many teens don't have enough information to make such a decision the question is simply intended as a way to get to know the kids better.
When I was a kid there were several things I wanted to become. When I was two-and-a-half years old my brother was born and I decided to become a mommy. And later I wished to get a Victorian house and "fill it full of kids."
I've achieved both those dreams, but not quite as I had envisioned them. Instead of giving birth to lots of babies, my husband and I raised three foster kids with special needs in addition to our one birth daughter. And the Victorian house where we lived for decades was, indeed, filled with kids, but not our own. In order to be a stay-at-home mom for our daughter I ran a preschool family daycare home for many years.
But one childhood dream was fulfilled exactly as I had hoped it would be. As soon as I had learned to read well I'd decided to become the author of books for children and, after years of writing articles in periodicals for adults, I was thrilled to have two fiction books for kids published last year.
What did you want to be when you grew up? Did your dreams come true?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wanted to be so many things.

1. A doctor - but thoughts of blood scared me off
2. A SAHM(of 4 kids) - partially came true. I am a SAHM, but only have 1 child.
3. A princess - a little girl can dream, can't she?
4. A writer - I knew when I was in about 5th grade that I wanted to be a writer. I am a writer. Now I just want to get paid to do it. :)

Janet Ann Collins said...

Thanks, Suzanne.

Wouldn't it be nice if writers got paid a lot?

Connie Arnold said...

Interesting how our childhood dreams turn out, isn't it? We all have our ideas of what we want to be, and sometimes reality doesn't live up to it, sometimes it's better!

Janet Ann Collins said...

It certainly is interesting.