When I grow up, I wanna be…
A few mornings ago, Zoe wandered in and asked, “Mommy, what will Adam be when he grows up?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to be a doctor.” She said it matter-of-factly, like she’d been thinking about it.
“Wow. That’s a great thing to be.” I was thinking about how neat it is that at 4, she knows that women become doctors.
I remember wanting to be a nurse and a teacher when I was Zoe’s age. At the time, I don’t think it really occurred to me that women could be something other than mothers, nurses, and teachers (all of which are no less noble careers, but still, my view was definitely more limited). Almost all of my friends said one of those or some combination. I can remember going around the table at church when we were learning about Jesus the carpenter, Luke the doctor, Peter the fisherman, Paul the tent maker. The boys all said “motorcycle man” or something completely ridiculous but physically thrilling. All around the table, though, the girls were, “nurse,” “teacher,” “mommy,” and so on. I guess we were all already thinking about taking care of everyone. You know, there was the odd girl that would always say something like “a queen,” but most of us 4 and 5 year olds were too wise to think of that as anything other than just silly. I remember that, at around the same age, one of my brothers (Tommy, I think) wanted to be “a garbage truck man because they get to ride on the back of the truck.”
Anyway, almost immediately after I spoke, Zoe said, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to be a kuh-liceman.”
“Really? A policeman? Why?”
“I want to be a kuh-liceman ‘ecause I want to throw everyone in jail.”
