This story originally appeared in Kids Today, Vox’s newsletter about kids, for everyone. Sign up here for future editions.
Earlier this year, I went to Career Day at my older kid’s school. The experience was sometimes humbling — at an elementary school career fair, no one can compete with the firefighters — but it was also incredibly joyful. Hearing from kids about what they want to be when they grow up can be a balm for anxious times.
Adults may be fearful for the future, kids are still dreaming and planning, figuring out the place they’re going to inhabit in a world that’s constantly changing. Yes, kids today will come of age in a time of climate change, war, and democratic backsliding — but they’re also going to create new art, invent new technologies, and pioneer new policies that will make the world better and richer in ways we can’t even imagine yet.
With all this in mind, I asked a few kids — including some of the Scholastic Kid Reporters who have helped me out in the past — to tell me what they want to be when they grow up, and what changes they hope to see in the world. A selection of their responses, which have been condensed and edited, are below. If the kids in your life would like to weigh in too, you can reach me at anna.north@vox.com.
I want to be a gymnastics teacher. I want to get married and have kids, maybe five. I want to go to France. I want to do ballet in France.
I want to do anything I want. I want more kittens on the planet. I want everyone to have their own house with their own family. I want self-driving lawnmowers. I don’t want people to eat chickens, who should be treated like a princess.
During Covid, our math and science teacher would show us these videos about space. Those videos really inspired me. The idea that there might be life other than planet Earth was just really cool to me. Our universe is so big, there’s so many places to explore, so many new things to learn.
[As a Scholastic Kid Reporter, I wrote a story] about the total solar eclipse. I remember interviewing Mr. James Tralie. That was really cool, because he worked at NASA, but he was also an animator, and I also love art and drawing. From that experience, I learned being part of NASA and learning about space is not only about being a scientist or being an engineer, it’s also about doing art, doing music, and just doing what you truly love related to space.
When I was younger, I loved playing with Legos. I love building new things. I’ve learned a lot about being an aerospace technician or an engineer: building rockets, fixing issues related to space technology. I also love exploring. So being an astronomer is one of my dreams.
I just don’t think it makes sense that there’s only one planet in our entire universe where there’s life. I hope to find life on other planets in the future.
I want to be a teacher because I see in my class a lot of different faces and colors of everyone, and I think it’s going to be important to help other people grow like I grow in my school.
In my class, I have people who are shy, people who need extra help, and people who are really smart, so I feel like getting education for everybody to reach the same [level] is going to be hard.
I would like to taxidermy a lamprey eel.
Interviewing ukulelist James Hill as a Scholastic Kid Reporter and talking to him about music showed me that there are many different ways to play an instrument. On his ukulele, he doesn’t just play a couple of chords — he makes creative musical sounds, even drumbeats. Talking with him inspired me to become a performer on the ukulele and guitar.
Not to brag, but I feel like I’m very skilled with ukulele. I feel like if someone gave me a sheet of music, I could learn it and play it for them maybe the next day perfectly.
My biggest goal is to experiment more with the notes and strings, learn some more tricks on it, and maybe someday make my own album.
I want to do research in politics or economics that could bring about real changes in our world.
Growing up during the Covid pandemic, we were all stuck online. I was seeing a lot of stuff about the Black Lives Matter movement, lots of Instagram stuff about LGBT rights, there was the Trump administration, and it really got me curious about politics and social justice.
I’m from Hong Kong as well, and in 2019 there were the protests that occurred about democracy. I’m really obsessed with the idea of preserving democracy, so I think that just pushed me further into reading more about politics.
I think you could use the quantitative bit of economics and tie it into the qualitative bit of politics, and use data, like observing patterns and everything, and apply that to something that could cause change in the world. I think I would be studying politics and economics so that I could keep both doors open, depending on what I want to pursue in the future. Because I’m still 17. I’m not set yet, but I think both of these paths offer me the education, the knowledge to potentially bring impact.
Watching the Olympics, hearing about doing archery, and seeing pictures [inspired me to want to be an Olympic archer]. Last year, I started saving up for an archery bow, and now I have one. We go to archery club every Sunday.
[I also want to be] a bat scientist. A few days ago, we went on a bat watch in the middle of the night. Have you heard of something called a bat detector? It’s a little device, and it can intercept different kinds of bat calls with this little dial, and you turn it [to] different levels, and you can listen for bats. We were at this wood cabin, and there was a big light for the bugs, and the bats would quickly go for them. So we didn’t really see them clearly, but we heard them very loud.
[I want to] study about bats: what they eat, what size they are, and where they like to go and everything.
Your mom says you want to be an owl scientist. What makes you want to study owls?
What’s your favorite owl?
Mice, rabbits, bugs, bats. … If I have a pet owl, and Flower has a pet bat… [trails off]
—Tabby, age 4, Flower’s sister
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Gracelynn said online arguments can be more complex than in-person confrontation because “when you are chatting online, they could copy and paste the text or media image and use it against you.” With in-person arguments, it’s also easier for adults to overhear and intervene. Gracelynn also noted that even though her school uses GoGuardian software to keep kids off certain websites during the day, “they still manage to pull off crazy things.”
Thank you again to Gracelynn and everyone who talked to me for that story, and as always, you can reach me with comments or questions at anna.north@vox.com.
