Career Ambitions
We have this Dr. Seuss-style book--perhaps you know it--called "Maybe You Should Fly a Jet! Maybe You Should Be a Vet!" It features many different vocational possibilities boiled down to single-drawing concepts. Some are silly for the sake of a rhyme. ("Noodle noodler," for example.) Others are chauvinistic. (Who knew "bride" was an occupation??) All are considered possible by my four-year-old boy, on whose short list of favorites this book currently resides.
It's been an on-again/off-again bestseller in our house, and it's been interesting over time to see which career he indicates as the one he'll pursue. The first few times through, he pointed to the florist when asked what job he liked. I attribute this to the time we had recently spent together planting our "shady garden" in a tiny space between our house and the neighbors' and will comment no further than that.
Between that time and now, he has alternated between wanting to be, in his words, an "artist-doctor" and a "rock climber." Not sure what the inspiration for the first aspiration was (too many episodes of "Extreme Makeover"?), but the second arose after a stop at a tiny lakeside park three blocks from our house. There, he clambered on the large rocks that line the shore and developed a taste for adventure.
In the last two days or so, we've been reading the book again. His pick (pardon the pun) now is "sculptor." I have no idea where this is coming from, but he has to some degree internalized it. When I saw him rubbing the metal latch and associated screws that had fallen off our neighbors' gate against the gate's wooden slats, I asked him what he was doing. "Sculptoring," he said plainly.
There's another occupation in the book about which our little sculptor asked yesterday. He pointed to a picture of a man on a horse following a steer and holding a lasso in his hand and asked, "What's that, Mommy?"
"That's a cowboy," I said.
"Why does he have that rope?" he pressed.
I explained to the best of my Midwestern ability that he was trying to catch the steer (which was a special kind of cow) and tie it up because...that's what cowboys do. He accepted this.
I thought more about that cowboy in the 36 hours since then as I faced a little animal who often snorts at me and bucks my attempts at authority. It occurred to me that I'm sort of a cowgirl, trying to "break" the will of this wild creature in my care who really just wants to be free and to be his own boss.
I like the image. The idea of wearing alligator-skin boots and spurs is especially sexy. But the challenge of squelching his free spirit just enough to "keep him in line" while leaving him sufficient independence to think for and be himself is enough to bring any ol' cowgirl to her knees.
It's been an on-again/off-again bestseller in our house, and it's been interesting over time to see which career he indicates as the one he'll pursue. The first few times through, he pointed to the florist when asked what job he liked. I attribute this to the time we had recently spent together planting our "shady garden" in a tiny space between our house and the neighbors' and will comment no further than that.
Between that time and now, he has alternated between wanting to be, in his words, an "artist-doctor" and a "rock climber." Not sure what the inspiration for the first aspiration was (too many episodes of "Extreme Makeover"?), but the second arose after a stop at a tiny lakeside park three blocks from our house. There, he clambered on the large rocks that line the shore and developed a taste for adventure.
In the last two days or so, we've been reading the book again. His pick (pardon the pun) now is "sculptor." I have no idea where this is coming from, but he has to some degree internalized it. When I saw him rubbing the metal latch and associated screws that had fallen off our neighbors' gate against the gate's wooden slats, I asked him what he was doing. "Sculptoring," he said plainly.
There's another occupation in the book about which our little sculptor asked yesterday. He pointed to a picture of a man on a horse following a steer and holding a lasso in his hand and asked, "What's that, Mommy?"
"That's a cowboy," I said.
"Why does he have that rope?" he pressed.
I explained to the best of my Midwestern ability that he was trying to catch the steer (which was a special kind of cow) and tie it up because...that's what cowboys do. He accepted this.
I thought more about that cowboy in the 36 hours since then as I faced a little animal who often snorts at me and bucks my attempts at authority. It occurred to me that I'm sort of a cowgirl, trying to "break" the will of this wild creature in my care who really just wants to be free and to be his own boss.
I like the image. The idea of wearing alligator-skin boots and spurs is especially sexy. But the challenge of squelching his free spirit just enough to "keep him in line" while leaving him sufficient independence to think for and be himself is enough to bring any ol' cowgirl to her knees.
posted by Lisa Strandberg at 10:25 PM
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