Career Planning for Babies

In that silly part of my mind that thinks far, far too far into the future, I've created a nice little list of Careers I Hope My Boys Might Have.

Practicing for spacewalks

In no particular order:

1. Astronaut
2. Medical missionary
3. Professional baseball player (Seattle Mariners preferred)
4. Folk-rock singer/songwriter

If you think it's weird that I cultivate such a list, then get this: I also fret about what might happen should they actually become any of these things. Medical missionaries are often in harm's way! Professional baseball players are often jerks! Singer-songwriters often live in vans! Astronauts FREAKING GO TO OUTER SPACE! 


Et cetera.

We've been thinking a lot about careers in this family lately. Mostly because none of us (babies and otherwise) have them. Wished-for careers, maybe. Magical things called "career options" that our college degrees are supposed to give us. But like anyone who's done any job hunting in the past couple years knows, "options" is a pretty meaningless word. (That, and I just really like bumming around my house doing made-up things like "mothering" and "blogging" and "reading books for fun.")

I get a little down on careers sometimes. I like the quote "Careers are a twentieth-century invention, and I don't want one," even if I don't really dig the story it comes from (Into the Wild. Overrated.)  Why can't Americans be things like hunter-gatherers anymore? Tim would have made a great hunter-gatherer.

But you can't buy cars or houses or every Toy Story action figure known to man as a hunter-gatherer. Or as a stay-at-home parent, or a worker in a low-paying but enjoyable and easygoing job, or anything like that. Nooo, you've got to work your butt off, then work off the layers of muscle and bone beneath your butt. And if you don't, you're lazy, or a moocher, or unmotivated, or whatever -- no matter who you are otherwise.

I haven't solved the problem of work, or money, or rat-races, or any of that, and I don't suppose I will by the time my boys grow up, unfortunately.

I can't guarantee they'll be any of the things on my list, or any of the things on the wish-lists they'll have someday. I can't guarantee they'll like those jobs if they have them. I can't even guarantee they'll have jobs they like even a little bit at all. But I can start now telling them it doesn't matter.

If my kids want a career, great. But I don't want them to need one. I don't want a job to be what makes my babies happy someday. I want them to find their joy and peace and identity in God, in their families and friends, in their communities, in all the things they do that they're not paid for. I'd love it if they loved their jobs, but I don't ever want them to think their worth is in their career. My parents never put that expectation on me, and I'm thankful for it, especially on days when I start beating myself up over lack of big paychecks and important credentials.

Someday, when my boys are grown up and someone asks me "So what do your kids do?" I'd like to answer with something like, "Well, they spend a ton of time at home with their families, they have wonderful adventures wherever they go, they serve God and their neighbors, they build and create and explore."

(And then -- maybe -- I'd like to add, "on Mars.")