Is Telling Kids "You Can Be Anything You Want To Be When You Grow Up" Actually A Good Thing?
We all grew up wanting to be something, however unrealistic. We spend the majority of our years in school working towards college, and then a job we work for the next 50 years or so. We all have dreams, and even as our dreams evolve over time, most of them are school and career-centered. But we’ve never stopped to ask ourselves if this kind of culture is really conducive to raising children in a healthy way.
Before we can even address the issue of college not being a one-size-fits-all solution for each and every individual, and before we can even change the narrative around motherhood and domesticity as being empowering rather than oppressive, we have to first turn our attention to how we talk to kids about their futures. We might actually be doing them more harm than good, without even realizing it. Is telling kids “you can be anything you want to be when you grow up” actually a good thing?