I am around more young people these days than at any point since I was young myself. Between my work…and my status as the parent of teenagers, I hear much of what young people have to say, both the things they say to adults and the things they say to each other. They say a lot ”” some of it scary, of course, but also much of it reassuring.
But here is something I never hear any of them say: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Only adults ask that question, and whenever I hear it, I cringe. I mean, this is mostly from people in their forties and fifties ”“ a group for whom you’d think the experience of deciding, re-thinking, re-deciding, and finally (sometimes) deciding not to decide, would be a fresh one….
My husband tells a story about when he was working as a reporter. He asked a question of Senator [George] Mitchell, during the Iran-Contra affair, and the Senator replied, “I disagree with the premise of your question. If you’d like to ask another, I’ll try to answer it.” Whenever I feel myself starting to ask a student what he or she wants to be, I remind myself that the premise of the question is wrong. It’s not what to be, it’s who.
–Alison M. Bennie
I disagree with the premise of the assertion, Mrs. Bennie.
Good bye John Adams; hello Peter Pan.
There is a low, facile cleverness about the last question that reminds us that we can avoid reading such piffle without damaging our appetite for real insight. Larry