What did you want to be when you grew up?

Sorry. That was for Su22

A ballerina, nay, a prima ballerina. If you’ve ever seen that advert for an insurance company where a rather solid child in tutu and ballet shoes flings herself round the house to Elton John’s Tiny Dancer, crashing into tables and setting all the ornaments wobbling and the pets scattering, that was me. I had all the gear - full pink outfit with satin shoes, ballet books, a cup, Nutcracker/Sleeping Beauty LP, ballerina bedding and coffee table. Sadly, I never made the Royal Ballet. I’m guessing an actual lesson or two might have helped…

I wanted to go into medicine - a theatre sister was my aim. I was, however, an only child who wanted to please my Mum. She had dreadful RA, was often in and out of hospital for operations and various procedures and really put me off the idea. I adored my parents, but wondered later, if she’d wanted me to be available to help care for her in later life, which, perhaps subconsciously had made her so against my career choice. I went into social services.
From the mid 90s, I cared for my daughter, my mother, my father and later DH. My friends say I’m the best nurse the NHS has never paid.

I wanted to be a librarian, I loved being in the library and thought I would be able to read books all day !
I did work in a library for a brief time many years later ,just part time, and soon found a lot of time was spent putting books back on shelves and answering readers queries- not quite what I envisioned as a child.
Instead I became an infant teacher and that was very rewarding.

Georgesgran 💐

I had dreams of being an air hostess as it seemed glamorous to me! That or a hotel receptionist possibly. But ended up working in a bank in early 70’s in those days very much male dominated though

I wanted to be a nurse, imagining it to be like Emergency Ward 10 which was popular on TV at the time. I lasted barely four months and had to return home in shame. After a year working in Darling’s Dungeon, a boutique in the basement of an Edinburgh department store, I went to Edinburgh University and eventually found my niche as a writer and editor. I still have the greatest respect for nurses.

My parents were decorating the house when I was about 7 and I was "helping". Our teacher asked us what we wanted to be and I said "An interior decorator" Funnily enough I ended up designing record shops for EMI so I was quite close.

I wanted to be a professional musician, which I achieved in the form of instrumental teaching and accompanying. If this had not worked out, I would have trained as a librarian.

A policewoman, then later, a journalist. I ended up working as a Finance Clerk, then later, a Domiciliary Carer

I wanted to be a radiographer, but when the careers officer came to the school, she terrified me and I couldn’t think of the word radiographer, so I said I wanted to work in a hospital. I ended up as a nurse. I always envied the radiographers whenever I went down to X-ray.

From age five, I wanted to teach. Went to teacher training college and after the first teaching practice, realised it was not for me. Then wanted to be an archivist but back in those pre-internet days, no-one knew how to help me find out what to do to achieve it. So I ended up training as a secretary, which I did until I retired. Strangely, I have always worked in either schools or colleges, so the teaching bug must have been deeper than I thought. I still hanker after being an archivist…

My teachers were always telling my parents when I was in secondary school that I should be a teacher. I cant imagine why because I decided at age 11 I didnt want children nor did I particularly like them! So its ironic that in later life I did go into accademia - but uni students are adults. Or at least they are supposed to be.

Nell82 did your brother sue the charm school?!

Iam64

I wanted to work with animals. In my teens I realised my poor science and maths abilities meant I couldn’t be a vet. At 17 I wanted to join the police dog or horse teams. My dad was a senior officer in CID and advised me police cadets or officers were directed, didn’t get to select their chosen area of work. He added that police work wasn’t a job for women. Years later he apologised for his previous views on women. He said in recent years he’d worked with excellent female officers and now believed I could have been one

I really sympathise. My father was exactly the same back in the early 60s when I desperately wanted to be a Customs Officer like him. In those days, a parent could put their feet down, and you would listen! After working in a bank, marrying and being a stay-at-home mum for a few years, I eventually managed to achieve my dream at the grand age of 34! I stayed there until retirement and loved it. I did quite well with promotions and niche posts and my father eventually admitted he was proud of me. I never stopped resenting him for making it impossible to follow my dream at 17. I was told by my superiors at staff reporting time that I could have done exceptionally well climbing the ranks if I’d had enough working years to do it by starting straight from school. Thank you Dad!

From age 5, I wanted to act in horror/psycho movies, but the acting path was never paved for me.

I went into training as a wrestler but while I found I could actually wrestle, I was too gentle on my opponents; I was scared of accidentally hurting them! My trainer suggested I wrestle men, which I tried, and could do it, but again, I was scared of the pain I might cause. I'm 6'2 and 11 stone, and I was always worrying in case I accidentally booted them in the face or broke their ribs! I still love WWE wrestling to this day and am always watching various matches! I could have had my name in lights and wrestled all the greats! Rhea Ripley! Santino Marella!

I could have been a professional singer; I had a voice similar to Karen Carpenter, but then my voice ''broke'' when I was 19, and I could never hold a tune again!

Over the years, I ended up working in Retail as a general assistant, supervisor, and manager, worked as a bus driver and bus route learner - I taught other drivers - . As a cleaner for various companies, was a team leader, assistant manager and secretary for a couple of mental health charities, then a few years ago I became a carer in a home for the physically and mentally disabled, which I'm still doing, but I'm quitting in December and moving to a new area where I've lined up a job as a retail shop manager!

I'm now 60, so I think the new job will be the last one I do!

Georgesgran

I wanted to go into medicine - a theatre sister was my aim. I was, however, an only child who wanted to please my Mum. She had dreadful RA, was often in and out of hospital for operations and various procedures and really put me off the idea. I adored my parents, but wondered later, if she’d wanted me to be available to help care for her in later life, which, perhaps subconsciously had made her so against my career choice. I went into social services.
From the mid 90s, I cared for my daughter, my mother, my father and later DH. My friends say I’m the best nurse the NHS has never paid.

You may well be right re the reason for her being against your career choice - ie to be lined-up ready to be a carer to her in later life. Very naughty of her.....very very naughty of her. I expect there's a noticeable number of women that were mothers to our generation and were traitors to their own daughters like that - ie by trying to restrict our lives...so we'd have fewer options and pretty much by default would become carers to them latterly.

I came to realise later on in life why I'd started out with no opinions/no wishes/no tastes at all and it struck me I needed to have all that and everyone else did. The reason was because she wanted me lined-up to be a carer to her and she slanted a lot of things to make me decide I'd move in the directions she wanted (ie because she'd tried to make sure there was nothing else I wanted to do instead). She was prone to subtly "directing" people if she could get away with it.

My father was the one who "told on her" eventually and said to me "Your mother will try to turn you into a carer for her later on in life. Don't do it - she'll drive you mad". He was very specific - that her mother (grandmother really as I eventually realised) had her lined-up to be a carer to her in later life and she would try to do that to me in turn in time to come - as she thought that was how life was supposed to be. Thankfully I had my fathers sense of fairness and realised "How come my brother (and his family) are quite free to do what they want in her eyes - but I'm not?"

My mother was pretty/lived in Plymouth and never ever went out with a man that wasnt in the armed forces - that's one way to line yourself up with a husband that will get posted abroad and so you tag along too.....and her (grand)mother threatened to die of a heart attack if her daughter got taken abroad by her husband/my father and she did too and was gone before we got back to England. So my mother had found a way to prevent doing a lot of the carer role her (grand)mother had decided on.

There were ructions from my mother bigtime when 60 saw me retiring and promptly announcing I was moving to Wales (ie about 5 hours drive away and I'm not a driver either). She simply had no comprehension that I still hadnt got my "final house" (detached/garden/reasonable area) - though that was what she had and so she could hardly plead I should continue to manage in a terrace house with back yard in an area that was going down. I might never have got a "forever home" and been trapped in my starter house.

I found out subsequently she'd instantly flown into a fury and "punished" me for doing that behind my back (to my erstwhile brothers delight - you get the picture).

I don’t think I ever wanted to ‘be’ anything. I just drifted after GCSEs into college to train 2 years (medical shorthand, background to the NHS) to be a medical secretary. Dad was disappointed I didn’t do ‘A’ levels. 🤷‍♀️
I’m lazy.
No aspirations. I tend to just bobble along through life with no Great Plans! #lazygran
In fact I copied a school friend who was applying for the medical secretary course. Sadly although it was her idea, she didn’t get the necessary grades to enrol. That was tough for her while I drifted in.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I don’t think I ever wanted to ‘be’ anything. I just drifted after GCSEs into college to train 2 years (medical shorthand, background to the NHS) to be a medical secretary. Dad was disappointed I didn’t do ‘A’ levels. 🤷‍♀️
I’m lazy.
No aspirations. I tend to just bobble along through life with no Great Plans! #lazygran
In fact I copied a school friend who was applying for the medical secretary course. Sadly although it was her idea, she didn’t get the necessary grades to enrol. That was tough for her while I drifted in.

Hmmm.....but were you subtly influenced to be "lazy"? I drifted into secretarial work too - when it struck me the alternatives might be shop or factory work if I hadnt.

My father was not a happy bunny either - I remember his exact comment of "Why didn't you go to university? You could have. Your brother couldnt - as he's not capable. You are - so why didnt you?"

Maybe neither of us took it seriously? Maybe at least part of the reason was "expectations" from mothers? That's, in the main, how women got pushed into being carers - just "drifting" with expectations of that from their mothers. Yep...I've been on Chat GPT again - this time asking why/how women got to be carers and it wasnt 50/50 sons as well as daughters. Very first point it made = yep...it was very much daughters and lots of them were very much pushed in that direction by pulling family expectations against them.

I make the standing joke of "I started work not knowing what I wanted to do - and came out the other end retired and still didn't know what I wanted to do". But I don't think it is necessarily lazyness if that happened. I can't have been lazy for one - as there was a period of my life where I was basically doing two full-time jobs worth at once - and only paid for one of them.

I think I might have gone for researcher or legal executive (would that have gone as far as solicitor?? Don't know) in a more encouraging environment.

So maybe you werent lazy? Maybe you had been discouraged?

My dad wanted me to go to university just like my brother had before me. He had no time for those who thought it was a waste of time educating women, bless him. Looking back now, I can see that for a working class man of the time, he was very enlightened in his attitudes. He was very clever himself but had to leave school and get a job, being the eldest, then worked in a factory the rest of his life. His bosses wanted to promote him, but he was happy doing what he did snd didn’t want promotion. He was always a wise man, my daddy.

No. Lazy I’m afraid! Dad encouraged me to go for ‘A’ levels. Hmm. No interest from me, sadly. Probably because I was pretty aimless I had no vision. Silly really. But hey. I’m sure I won’t be the only one on here who just coasted …

I didn’t ever think of myself as being a grown up with a job, so had absolutely no dreams of a career in anything. When I was a grown up I drifted into college and then secretarial work which I loathed but did nothing about it because I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. Lazy I guess and a bit of a drifter like FGT. At nearly 80, if I had my time again I would have loved to be a gemologist as I now have a fascination. Bit late!

George Eliot said: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been”

I wanted to be a writer, I was a bookworm, lived in the library and carted as many books home as was allowed. I also was chief storyteller for my younger siblings. Art also was a family trait and I continue that to this day.

As it happened, music became my chosen career as my soprano voice developed.

I wanted to be one of those “scented ladies” you know, the very glam ladies on the perfume counters when I was little.
I actually had a 40 year career as a nurse! Quite different, but extremely rewarding.