Did you achieve what you set out to be?

[lou33]

I just wondered if anyone achieved their ambition of what they wanted to be when they were a child? After a conversation with 3 of my children it made me remember what I really wanted to do when I was an adult (dancer) but I wasn't able to after a series of knee injuries. I sort of wafted around from job to job then until I got pg. Did you get where you wanted to be, and is it all you expected it to be?

Btw dd1 said she wants to be a doctor (she's 10), dd2 wants to be a princess ,or failing that a pop star (6), and ds1 wants to be a giant and a sword fighter (4)! I wonder how to prepare some of them for the disappointment ?!

OOOoooohhh PhilipaT - you work in an art gallery and your DH is a writer and artist..... I want to be you when I grow up

I wanted to be a librarian. The thought of being behind a big desk with piles of books needing stamping and sorting with my hair up in a bun and the specs on MUST have appealed to me in some strange way.

I never wanted to have a partner or have children, so I've failed miserably!

As I child, I used to have pottery lessons and craved the lifestyle of my teacher. She was middle aged with no children, lived in a big old house and rented most of it out to interesting lodgers. She taught pottery in a shed at the bottom of her gardern. When I was 10 years old, this was my idea of bliss. Still is today, sometimes.

I also wanted to write. I do this and get paid for it, so some success there. BUT I do not write what I want to write. I must, must, must rectify this.

BTW has anyone here subscribed to the women's writing magazine Myslexia?

Sobernow, Brenda Blethyn ring any bells? I am pretty sure she was a civil servant for a good long time before following her dream!
BigBird, you missed out on a profession that's a lot more fun than you make it out to be. I spend my days very enjoyably helping students and staff and answering enquiries on almost anything under the sun. Not a bun or a date-stamp in sight these days.

I always wanted to be an MP and then a successful politician. Dh says he'll divorce me if I even consider it later in life, as he thinks they are all, without exception, a bunch of toerags.....

I asked my 4 year old today what she wanted to be when she gets older, her reply, she wants to be Jumbo elephant and play with Noddy all day, awwwwwww bless!

I wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter - wanted to do crafts, going on exciting trips overseas and other exciting things.

I wanted to study maths at Heidelberg university - fell in love with Heidelberg on an exchange at the age of 13.

I nearly threw in my A-levels to go on a nanny training scheme so I could nanny overseas but my parents wouldn't hear of it.

I wanted to marry someone from overseas so our children would be bi-lingual and we could travel lots (can see a theme of itchy feet emerging here). This is the closest I came to achieving any of my ambitions: I married a Kiwi whose only language is English although he is pretty good at picking up phrases when working overseas.

I wanted to do all sorts of things, a teacher, a journalist, a postlady...and I haven't done any of them although I did always want to have children so I guess I've achieved that ambition.

I had my children before I got a career started though so still feel as though I haven't grown up enough to know what my job will be. I actually have a list on my computer of jobs I might want to do when I grow up!

I always wanted to be a civil servant Honestly.

I can really identify with the lazy ones here. wanted to be an investigative journalist (Sue Lloyd Roberts was trendy when I was a teenager) then a barrister (which was really my dad's dream) Failed miserably at all of these because didn't really try to do any of them.

Also wanted to study at the Sorbonne because it sounded trendy and then at Columbia University in New York because Jack Kerouac studied there. Is the theme of shallow coming across?

If I knew then what I knew now, I would have worked harder at French and trained to become a translator and worked in Brussels or Strasbourg (applied there as well!)

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I always wanted to work with children. Now I can't bear other peoples' and I don't always like my own!!!! I drifted into local government, eventually leaving to become a SAHM which was my real ambition. I've got to go back to work now and its a case of anything that I can get

I wanted to be 1) an actress and 2) a lawyer. (Same thing really). Did some training for both but ended up doing anthropology as a degree. Have since studied Man all my life but have never got paid for it! Sounds a bit prufrock that last bit.
Also have to act without getting paid for it.

tigermoth, i've subscribed to mslexia, why, are you thinking about it or do you already?

tigermoth, i've subscribed to mslexia, why, are you thinking about it or do you already?

I wanted to work in a sweet shop. All those big jars of sweeties and, as a button freak, I just loved the thought of having my very own real cash register to play with!

CAM - brilliant!

Louche, re Mslexia: I am going to subscribe to it, I think. What's the magazine like? is it useful?

Right now I am kicking myself for not getting off my a* and applying for a one-day 'getting published' workshop run by Mslexia via the Spitalfields Women and Literature festival. I was told there were places available but by the time I booked there were none left.