ABSTRACT
Asking children what they want to be when they grow up is a fairly common conversation between adults and children in the United States. Most children have an answer, and most of their answers are actual jobs. Often the answers are along gender lines: boys want to play the professional sport that is in season or be doctors or ‘cops’. Girls want to be teachers and ballerinas and lawyers and veterinarians. Follow-up questions often reveal the bases for these aspirations to be flimsy: some children think you become a physician by putting in an application; others think they are qualified to be a lawyer because they have been told they like to argue. More than a third want to be what their parents are (Trice, 1991). Children rarely know much about the educational requirements or the pay or more than one thing they would do on that job on a regular basis (Trice, Hughes, Odom, Woods, & McClellan, 1995).
