Ambition 03.08.07

According to my children I am very old fashioned. The reason for this sweeping statement was because I had asked the girls what they hoped for as an eventual career. To them it seems years away, but I don't think it is so unreasonable to expect someone who is about to go to university to have given a little thought to career options. Apparently people don't do that these days. This set me thinking, I have an old postcard with wandering footprints on it with the words 'People who don't know where they are going usually end up somewhere else". I guess that is true with careers as much as anything else. The high hopes of childhood often diminish and people settle for something very different. I just want the girls to make the most of every opportunity because it is so much more difficult to change career or undertake further training later in life when you are tied by financial commitments.

For much of my childhood I wanted to be a farmer or a writer, my eventual career has been very different. My very first ambition was to be a news reader, I was only very small and I used to sit in the bath holding one of those old fashioned shower attachments that fitted onto the taps as if it was a microphone, I would make up all sorts of news and pretend I was on the Radio. On the subject of microphones, when Laura was little she wanted to be a Spice Girl, but she will kill me for mentioning it. Robbie wanted to be a lorry driver because he liked lorries, so he hasn't strayed too far from his original aspirations, it seems his passion for trains has served him well because he loves his work. Sam's first ambition was to be a trolley pusher at the supermarket. At some point a well meaning aunt suggested he may like to be a vet instead because he is very good with animals, but Sam declined claiming that he only liked animals from the outside not from the inside! He then went on to his spy phase, there was a brief period of wanting to be a super hero, then he wanted to be a cartoonist. He still has a strong interest in films and he has had various thoughts about careers in the film industry. I wonder what his future will hold.

So what is my ambition now? Fairly simple really, to grow old disgracefully and to write.