Vocational Wisdom, at Such a Young Age

When I was a boy, I dreamed of becoming an ice cream man when I grow up, and then a hockey player - a Boston Bruin, no doubt - and, overlapping with this vision, a monk, and then a psychologist, and then a teacher or, especially by college, perhaps a professor, and, after college, maybe a writer or a psychologist or a teacher or a professor or a linguist, or some combination of those categories. But the education theme prevailed in my fantasy life, until I realized that I'd rather be learning stuff for myself than teaching more-or-less the same stuff over and over again to a probably ungrateful, even potentially treacherous, Next Generation. Mr. Holland's Opus is (possibly) a beautiful story (I never saw the movie, and I don't like Richard Dreyfuss), but I think teaching is probably boring, at best.

Fast-forwarding:

Tonight, Ian asked me if there are any higher grades than Twelfth Grade. I explained that there really *are*, but in college, the years have names, rather than numbers. This was Ian's moment of Loss of Innocence, in the American tradition, where we all, at a pretty young age, discover that it ain't necessarily over when you've finished all your "grades," which you can almost count on your fingers. No, "High School" has an evil twin called "College," just as big, but also very expensive. (I didn't break the news about "tuition" to him, yet...) I explained the American philosophy of education - that everyone should be studying The World In General, for the most part, until you get to Graduate School, at which you can actually pick a central subject of study. Ian wanted to know exactly what that subject is. I explained that Mommy's Graduate School involved the study of law, but different people choose different subjects.

At this point, Ian said he would like to do "veterinarian," but he quickly spun a very sophisticated nuance on top of the initial assertion:

"For feelings, I would prefer veterinarian, but for me, I would prefer science, or maybe space."

This impresses me to no end - that at 7 years old, young Ian can discern a tension in professional aspirations that it took me a long, long time to figure out. For feelings, I would have preferred, perhaps, education or psychology, but for me, I preferred, and chose, software. Ian is someone who can contemplate this kind of conflict before starting second grade. To quote Ian himself, on another subject, "It fills me with mystery"... and encouragement.

(August 19, 2011)