I recently read an article about a certain nobility who was talking with his son about what he wants to be when he grows up. Note his son is two years old and it is especially egregious in this instance because duh has whined extensively about the expectations he grew up with.

I think adultifying children is a bad parunt red flag. A two year old doesn't understand the concept of being a grown up. Why not let the kid be a kid and stick with age appropriate questions and expectations? Let the toddler be a toddler, kid be a kid and maybe mention it around age 14 casually and only because that is the age grades start to count for some professions. It would stink if the kid has her/his heart set on something that requires perfect grades and fails out of ignorance.

I recall being asked about what I wanted to do with my life at the age of six, we had to talk about it in front of the entire class. I said I don't know (and thought is was a really dumb question to ask a kid who didn't know what I'd be doing at ten, let alone 30). I was also convinced most adults were utter idiots by this age.

I know people who were pushed into pursuing certain paths by their parunts and it didn't make any of them happy.

Another example is dumb parunts who ask their toddler/little kid about their girlfriend/boyfriend. Little kids shouldn't be encouraged into having boyfriends/girlfriends. When they hit their teen years those dumb parunts will regret this behavior. How many teen parunts experienced this as little children?

I've heard parunts whine about how fast their kids grow up and it makes me wonder if they're the force behind it in the first place.

Completely agreed. When I was 12, I got an assignment in class that asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. That teacher was nice enough to tell us that she wasn't going to hold us to it, but so many other adults pushed this idea on me before I was in her class.

When I was in elementary school, my parents told me that colleges won't take me if I'm not getting good grades. I only got a few C grades because I forgot about homework, but still got a President's Award in my last year. This warning hurt more than helped. When my grades declined in middle school, I decided I would just attend the college advertised on TV. Lucky for me, we received a talk about the high school's system and I learned that only my high school performance counted for colleges.

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freya
Let the toddler be a toddler, kid be a kid and maybe mention it around age 14 casually and only because that is the age grades start to count for some professions. It would stink if the kid has her/his heart set on something that requires perfect grades and fails out of ignorance.

Some professions may require top college grades, but no profession in America requires perfect high school grades. Only prestigious undergraduate programs require great high school grades - along with great test scores and other achievements that demonstrate the student's ability. I still agree that the teen years are the best time to start the conversation because that's when they can make and act on useful plans.

Ohh man, I'm right there with you, misskitty. My whacko mother would get on my case so bad about my grades starting in like the first grade, and if I did badly on something, she'd scream at me that I'd never get into college and "not even Walmart will want you" if I didn't do better. Of course in her mind, any score below a 90 was a bad grade, and any score between 90 and 94 was always "why didn't you get a (higher grade)?" or "why didn't that bitch (the teacher) give you a better grade?"

Of course, she also would get super super mad at the teachers when they gave me lousy homework grades too because she did my homework for me, so getting a crummy homework score was an insult to her effort and intelligence, but hey if she was screaming at someone besides me, I was fine with it. But she was soooooooo weirdly obsessed with me getting good grades and going to college that my anxiety over homework carried over well into adulthood. I'm 35 and I still occasionally have nightmares about forgetting my homework. She felt that grades were the only thing that mattered. But she would also tell me all the time how stupid I was, so if I was stupid, I don't know why college mattered?

The funny thing is when I started doing my own homework so I didn't have to get screamed at for 4-5 hours every night because my mother couldn't understand the assignments, my grades improved. In spite of being told all my life how stupid I am, I was still smarter than my mother. Not that that's a big hurdle to overcome.

Man I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. If I could go back and do it again, I still have no idea what I'd do or be. I never had a dream job because I never dreamed about working.

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But no, I definitely agree. Just let kids be kids. Have expectations, have boundaries, have rules, but they'll have their whole adult lives to be adults. Let them enjoy being kids for those precious handful of years. Grades are important too, but not end of the fucking world important.

Adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up a lot, but they usually don't take the answer seriously and expect them to actually become that thing. Most kids don't have particularly realistic answers anyway.

When I was in elementary school I wanted to be a singer. My parents relentlessly discouraged this. It pissed me off then and it pisses me off now. Becoming a famous singer is extremely unlikely to happen and I'm sure I would have eventually figured that out on my own and thought of a different career. My parents could have let me enjoy the fantasy and just said something neutral like "good luck with that". Expecting an elementary school kid to have realistic and well thought out career goals is insane.

They also placed too much importance on schoolwork and grades. I would be much better off if they had encouraged me to be a well rounded person with a variety of interests.

Most kids in high school don't even really know what they want to do in life, which is why many of them go into debt for stupid university majors. That's one of the big mistakes we make as a society is in believing we've really prepared 17– and 18–year-olds for those choices. We haven't. How would a six-year-old have any idea?

kman, I never really know what I wanted to do. think think bitchmouth was trying to live her life through me... eventually I was able to see what a fucking hypocrite she was .. as well as a lot of other defects... (I'm plenty defective myself) but college was a waste of money to a certain extent.

it did give me a good foundation though, I cannot fault it for that. I was curious about computers one, back in 1970 and all bitchmouth would say 'they're boooooring'... we all know where that went... stupid fucking jerk she was... I had planned to go to my last year (I had enough credits to graduate) and do what I wanted to do but bitchmouth put a stop to that. probably for the best though... the phys ed teacher I had (and despised) had finally gotten position of senior couch for the seniors... (so she could finish destroying whatever they might have been...she destroyed a friend of mines chance to go into phys ed herself, Barley noodle was a real f'n hag and I never forgave her for what she did to my friend).... but I ramble..

. I think kids, young teens, they have interests at the moment that change as they grow and mature. far too many so called parunts invest their ego and gauge THEIR success or failure by how their kids turn out. sometimes kids are rotten horrors no matter what the parents say or do...but how does one prove anything??? all guesswork. another reason not to bother

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.