What did you want to be when you grew up? And how close (in work or play) did you get?

[nolabear]

I always, always wanted to be a writer, and damned if I didn't manage to do it. And after forty, too. I also loved animals and as a kid made a sign for my bedroom door that said "The Zookeeper is Out/In". And I did wildlife rehab for several years.

I feel lucky. Of course I have another job that makes the money for the most part but I do what I love and enjoy enough success to feel good about it.

I never DID manage to act or pursue visual art much, though, which I also aspired to do. Ah well, one never knows...

[Swamp Lover]

1. i wanted to be taller and able to buy beer....

SCORE!!!!!!!

[dimbear]

2. An adult.

Not within miles.

[femmocrat]

3. There weren't many options or role models for girls when I grew up.

Girls could become mothers, teachers, nurses, or secretaries. I never heard of a woman becoming a lawyer until I was in college!

I chose teaching, although I would have been a great veterinarian.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. I wanted to be a nurse, and I did do that.

Then I found out it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

So I retired.

Life goes on!

[Old Troop]

31. What turned you off? My daughter has been

an ER nurse for about six years and seems to like it although she has many stories about foolish docs and administrators.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

34. It takes a certain kind of aggressiveness and energy.

Some days I had it, and some days I didn't. After awhile, I decided it was for the young and agile, and I opted for a slower paced nursing job.

I went to work in a blood bank, and loved it.

Good for your daughter!

I used to help out in our ER, and that's one crazy place.

[Downwinder]

5. I wanted to make $1,000.00 a month.

I made it.

Social Security.

[HeiressofBickworth]

6. From the time I was in 9th grade, I

wanted to be a lawyer. It never worked out for me to go to college so I was never a lawyer. HOWEVER, my first job was in a law office. I was a legal secretary for a number of years and then promoted to paralegal. I was a paralegal from 1979 until I retired in 2009. So, I came close. I worked in the field of law which always interested me.

[crunch60]

7. I read National Geographic when I was little, cover to cover, I wanted to

see all those fantastic places, especially Machu Picchu, one of NG's cover photos. I left home in my late teens and traveled the world for many years. I stood on the mountain top, looking at the Inca ruins, my dream had come true.

[Ikonoklast]

8. I wanted to be an astronaut.

Closest I got was shaking John Glenn's hand.

Nice guy.

[Xipe Totec]

22. Me too!

I didn't get to meet John Gleen, but I did get to work on Shuttle on-board flight software for STS-1, and sit in meetings with John Young and Bob Crippen.

[HopeHoops]

9. Part-time vet, part-time fireman, part-time ice cream man, part-time zoo keeper,...

Not even fucking close.

[Broken_Hero]

10. I wanted to be Superman

still working on the flying...the heat vision, super strength, xray vision, super speed, super hearing, and icy breath....

But, I do got the Clark Kent thing down, so I feel positive about that....

I also wanted to be the next Jacques Cousteau, but then I saw Jaws....didn't come close to being the next Cousteau.

[Kali]

11. a cowboy

actually I went through a number of possibilities - vet, animal trainer, lawyer, detective (oh Nancy Drew!) some kind of biologist/science/poke-dead-things-with-a-stick sort of thing.

I am more or less living all of those, along with law enforcement, pest control, mechanic, waste disposal, maid, cook, trucker etc etc etc

[Chan790]

12. Not by half. I wanted to be an adventurer.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Jonny Quest; later I wanted to be Indiana Jones...later still I was obsessed with Tomb Raider.

My parents oddly were supportive ("oddly" because my parents were not supportive parents generally. My mother does not to this day know what I majored in: Political Theory, specifically Poli. Comm.) but they misunderstood and thought I wanted to be an archeologist so they encouraged that dream (I'd love to be an archeologist if there were a field of archeology dedicated to the study and finding of ancient preserved texts^1,2,3)...except the part that appealed to me was being chased and shot at by Chinese gangsters and Nazis and Mughul cultists which they still don't understand. (On a side-note, the latest Indiana Jones movie is reasonable grounds for someone to throw Lucas and Spielberg into an oubliette.)

I studied Politics not because I wanted to but because I was encouraged to choose a "sensible" field and told that History and English majors end up working at Starbucks. After college, I worked as a PR and Development Assistant. I was a Community Organizer. I managed a Starbucks. I worked in political campaigns. I was a museum docent. I wrote. I made some money. I moved to NYC and became a TV writer. (Possibly the only person in history to "fall into" that field and not want to be there. I hate writing, I'm just insanely good at it.) I left to become a licensed banker and teller-coordinator. I lasted a few years until I was fired for retaliation for turning the bank in for defrauding clients.

Now I sit at home and do nothing collecting unemployment, applying to jobs at the Smithsonian and trying figure out what I want to do with my life...I'm 32, I think it's a bit late to become an adventurer.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1-The coolest place I've ever been is the Oliviera Lima room at Mullen Library on campus at Catholic University here in DC. A library of artifacts and texts from the founding of the Church through the Great Schism. That is, documents between 900-2000 years old, some from as recently as 1600's.

2-I've spoken to archeologists about this when I was thinking about going back to school. They all advised me to avoid the field if things like pottery-shards and stone tools bore me (just not artifacts of the cultures I want to study for the most part: CE, European and North African, metal tools and pots; these are the people recent enough that we can find text-artifact) or specifically if I have no interest in Native-American or Mesoamerican culture. (And I don't: Aztecs, Inca, Mayans, Olmec, Toltec? Anasazi? Sioux? Not my thing.))

3-I keep getting encouraged towards "archivist" or "museum management/curation" as a career-path instead. I've worked in a museum and I did study to be an archivist briefly. Neither is for me, I want to be in the field...I went to field school for a reason; I want to dig and search and find interesting things. I'm just more interested in the Library of Alexandria or the Library of the Knights Hospitallier on Malta that was sacked or the diary of a 13th c. French peasant than I am in a Hopi agrarian village. The Dead Sea Scrolls are more interesting to me than the entirety of Mayan civilization.

[nolabear]

25. Baby, you ARE a fantasy.

Can I be you when I grow up?

Hope you find that job soon. Secret agent might work out...but then how would we know?

[Auggie]

13. Paleontologist

But I fell into advertising. I've worked with hundreds of clients, many of them rooted in old-fashioned, trite thinking. So I guess you could say I do work with dinosaurs.

[harmonicon]

14. It depends on what age.

I think the first thing I wanted to do was be "an army." By the time I was old enough to know that one could not be "an army" but rather a soldier, my dad said that I could do anything I wanted to do in life apart from joining the armed forces - he'd done it, and he felt like he did a lot of shit in his life so that his kids wouldn't have to.

Later, I wanted to be an artist, and then a race car driver.

By the time I was a teenager, I was pretty into music, and that's still what I do, but the money is tough to come by - I've been without steady pay and living on charity for over a year now, but I've got a good gig coming up next year.

I've also really always loved animals, especially wild cats and things like that, but I absolutely hate things like creepy crawlies, hot weather, being mauled, etc. so I knew not to pursue anything to do with that at a fairly young age.

I considered getting a double major in college and doing archaeology/anthropology, but found out that really I just found the subject interesting to read about and had zero interest in doing the actual work.

The best example of someone doing what they wanted to do as a kid is a cousin of mine. He's an airline pilot, and from as early as I can remember, he was obsessed with aircraft. He made models, and studied books of cockpit layouts, which he would replicate on tables with rocks and household objects. He could identify aircraft flying over his house from the ground. I'm just always amazed that he's had this same passion for so long and now makes his living at it.

[LibDemAlways]

15. I wanted to be a teacher. I would

round up my friends and play school - which they hated.

I did earn a teaching credential and taught for a few years. Then I gave it up to enjoy the perks of being a travel agent - back when those perks existed. I took a break to stay home with my daughter when she was small, and then I went back to teaching as a substitute. I suppose I've come full circle.

[geardaddy]

16. It changed from day to day.

One day surgeon, the next pro-hockey player, the next rock star (I've come closest to that, but still miles away), veterinarian.

I'm a technical writer. Never thought I'd do that.

[cliffordu]

17. I wanted to be a soldier and fight in a war(made it),

Play guitar professionally (did that for years),

Make a living as an actor (did that)

Live long enough to be an old fat drunk and write poetry and have my way with younger women.

(The Ben Franklin model)

Got that nailed even as I write this.

(We all know I am NOT Ben Franklin, as talented or genius as he, although my depravity probably ranks right up there)

[lastlib]

18. I wanted to be a member of the liberal intellectual establishment....

...all I ever got was the "liberal" part.....

[MiddleFingerMom]

19. A doctor.

.
.
.
I was a medic in the Army with incredible emergency and clinical training and experience
(for the first four years anyways -- the last two here Stateside with the 101st Airborne, I
was allowed to pass out Band-Aids and aspirins -- SUCKED).
.
.
Due to the shortage of doctors in the early 70's overseas, we were allowed (if we could
show mad skillz) to do things that RN's can't do here in the States.
.
Minor surgeries (very minor -- lancing boils, removing moles and surface cysts, etc),
suturing, diagnosing and prescribing -- we were probably doing things on a low physician's
assistant level.
.
.
Didn't have the math skills for med school.
.
.
.

[TrogL]

20. Mad scientist

I'm barking mad. I'm a computer scientist. Guess I succeeded.

[trof]

21. Well, I wanted to be Al Jolsen. Or the next Al Jolsen?

Mom took me to see "The Jolsen Story".
Larry parks played Jolsen.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038661/

We walked out and i said "I want to be Al Jolsen."
I was 6.

Although that didn't work out, I can do a pretty good 'Jolsen' now.
I have an ear for mimicking some singers.
I can do Sinatra and a very convincing Louis Armstrong.
Never done it professionally, just been a big hit at karaoke bars.


Which of course led me to a career in aviation.
I became an airline pilot.

[nolabear]

26. Oh YOU were the one singing over the loudspeaker!

The idea of Louis Armstrong bringing us into MSY tickles hell out of me!

[Bertha Venation]

23. I wanted to be a skydiver.

At the time I called it "parachute jumper."

The closest I got was trying to get a better jump on the ball.

[pink-o]

24. an artist or performer of the arts.

When I was a young child, it was all about acting. Then as a tween, I got into fine and graphic arts. Mid teens, a musician, since I wrote songs as second nature. (not good ones, mind you!) And through it all, I was writing the Great American Novel, in case any of the other careers didn't pan out.

So....actually NONE of them panned out, including writing! I work as ground staff for an airline, which allows me to travel and make my own schedule--something in my old age I have come to understand is far more important than an artistic career. It seems as life goes on, you jettison the extraneous shit that is basically meaningless and concentrate on what really matters. And my only priorities at this point are being healthy and free. I feel I have succeeded at both those goals, so I don't mind the other failures!

[nolabear]

27. I'm enjoying all your replies tremendously. Thanks!

[1monster]

28. I wanted to be rich and a perpetual student.

I was comfortable (able to pay my bills, buy new clothes occasionally, eat good food, and buy books without worrying) for a while (but not for long). And I'm a substitute teacher -- always learning. I have larned that one can be a perpetual student without attending a formalized school.

[LiberalEsto]

29. When I was 6 I wanted to be a ballerina

Unfortunately, when I started ballet classes the following year, it was patently obvious that I was a hopeless klutz.

[Kablooie]

30. I've wanted to be an animator since I was in the 6th grade.

I focused on learning as much as I could as a kid, continued all through college and I've now had a career in animation for over 3 decades

[ohiosmith]

32. A cop, then an actor, then an attorney. Not even close.

Twent years retail, fifteen years commercial real estate, ten years executive with a career management firm.

[Old Troop]

33. I wanted to be a soldier. Did it for almost 30 years

Then realized that what I really wanted was to be an archivist or an archaeologist.