As usual we are a bit behind on things here, and have only just realized that we missed National Career Development Day, which was way back in November. We admit that Career Day is not nearly as much on our radar as, say, National Eat a Cookie Day.* Nevertheless, careers are important things to consider, especially if you are around that age when you are starting to feel some pressure from others about what you would like to do when you grow up -- say, around the age of 30 or 40.
But even younger individuals are often grilled about their career plans. Ages four and five, for some reason, seem to be the time when adults think you should start thinking about the future. It's important, therefore, to give young children a variety of experiences so they can make intelligent, well-informed decisions. For example, when I was student teaching a preschool class, many of the Little Persons wanted to become doctors when they grew up. But on Wednesdays, their resolve wavered, because that was the day the garbage truck came to haul away the center's trash. The dumpster was right outside our classroom, and most of the Little Persons were glued to the window to watch this exciting process. The sheer size and power of the garbage truck so inspired some of them that, at least on that one day each week, they yearned to be garbage men someday, freeing the trash from the tyranny of the dumpster.
Not many of the girls expressed an interest in this as a career, which perhaps was our fault as teachers. They were more likely to want to be something in the line of traditional female occupations, such as ballerina or princess. Teaching was also high on their list of possible careers, which must have meant that, whatever our failings at steering them toward nontraditional career paths, we must have been doing SOMETHING they wanted to emulate.
These days I am a little out of touch with what Little Persons aspire to be, although certainly it is not likely that any of them long to be an editor. Again, this is perhaps due to the fact that editing as a career choice has simply not been marketed properly to youngsters. Perhaps if they knew that the defining feature of an editor's work is pointing out other people's writing mistakes, and that you get to mark up their manuscripts in a great deal of red, at least some of them might be interested enough to switch from the Garbage Man track.
The other day at work I got a glimpse of what one current child is considering for a career. A co-worker mentioned that her grandson, influenced among other things by Ranger Rick magazine, had declared an interest in zookeeping.
We all nodded appreciatively. Zoology was a very impressive and respectable line of study.
But the grandma looked sheepish. "Well, actually...lately he's thinking he might like to be an elf instead."
"An elephant?" someone asked. "He wants to, like, BE an elephant?"
"Elf," the grandma said. "He wants to be an elf and live at the North Pole."
"That wouldn't be so bad," someone said. "He'd only have to work part of the year."
The grandma continued, "And he's thinking maybe he could somehow combine the zookeeper and elf positions."
We thought this was very enterprising on the young man's part. "Well," someone said, "Santa's reindeer certainly would need a zookeeper."
We continued for some time in this vein, discussing the relative merits of zookeeping and elfism and the possibilities for combining the two. Personally I thought the choice of elf showed somewhat more imagination than, say, a princess. Plus, at least elves contribute to the economy, and also try to make people happy, whereas princesses pretty much get things done FOR them and aren't really known for making others happy. The possible exception is a prince, but only for a short time, until she starts complaining about what he is or is not doing for her.
Obviously the future zookeeper/elf has a lot of decisions to make in the next decade or two. "But first," said his grandma, "he has to learn how to be away from his mom."
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*We have been unable to pinpoint exactly when National Eat a Cookie Day is, so we recommend celebrating it every day, just in case.
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