The coolest part about being a parent is you get to relive your childhood through your kids (and watch lots of Spiderman cartoons on Youtube!).
Today is Children’s Day. Honestly I don’t remember celebrating this when I was a kid, and you might say – every day is “damn children’s day” as a parent. As we are working for the kids every day – morning until night.
The school had dress up day on Friday (since Children’s Day this year is on Saturday) and the kids had to dress up as what they wanted to be when they grow up.
Ok – time for the parents to step back and let the kids decide.
Wendy and I talked, it is so hard to not influence the kids on what they want to be when they grow up. We have our hopes and dreams for the kids, as any parent does, and would love to have them leap frog over all the exploration process.
But the exploration process is needed. It is part of living life. To learn what you like and what you hate.
Well, here our kid’s requests:
Miles – to be a robot. “No, Miles, you can’t become a robot”. OK, I want to make robots.
Maggie – to be a dancer. (Hmm, I suggest how about an engineer? Ok dad, no, I want to be a dancer)
We had our neighbor’s daughter also in today’s blog photo – they have been bonding as they live in our same village complex, also from China, and go to the same school 1 grade apart.
What Do You Want To Be when You Grow up? (Its Not Too Late!)
Man, can you believe I am reaching 40 years old soon. Life is just flying by.
So many of us “give up” on those childhood dreams. I remember I had a few different phases when I was growing up – but the one I can remember at my earlier years was I wanted to be an artist. Think that was shot down as I grew up as how do you make money as a painter, etc etc. I liked that movie “Great Expectations” (well the modern movie had that NYC Art Scene in it) I won’t wreck the movie but it was not “real” (and the feeling of not belonging.
Yet in my own way, I feel I did become an artist. This very blog is a reflection of that art. Writing random posts like the one today, got a few books online, built quite a few other blogs that have grown in authority.
I could have stayed working on Wall Street. I could have kept collecting that massive paycheck (drool) every 2 weeks. But I decided to make that leap and take that part time ecommerce business and go all in.
What a wild adventure it was -and still is.
I hope you can still do what you want to be “when you grow up” and not put your childhood dreams on the shelf. Life is really too short.
I hope my kids do what they want to be when they grow up. I hope I can continue to give them the environment they need and the support to do that – without interfering too much. Pretty cool Miles wants to make robots – that does sound like a pretty good field to go into with the way the world is going. Dancer, hmm, well she’s still young – maybe Maggie needs to watch more Transformers cartoons, hehe.
Cheers everyone – to the child in all of us – happy children’s day!