Weekend Assignment #77: When I Grow Up

Weekend Assignment #77: What do you want to be when you grow up?

This can be answered one of two ways: You can answer by saying what you wanted to be when you were a kid, or, you can answer by saying what you still want to be, one day, one way or another. It's up to you.

This may sound incredibly lame and somewhat mundane in this day and age but I wanted to be nothing more than a homemaker when I grew up. This is not the same thing as a housewife. Ye Gods! Who on earth wants to be married to a house? I can think of plenty of more interesting diversions as residing lady of the house than being subservient to a house, being little more than a slave dusting, performing unnecessary tasks past the reasonable requirements for a comfortable, clean home. All I ever wanted to be was the woman who remained at home, in charge of the household and depended upon to be there when my children returned home from school and to greet my husband with a passionate kiss and a well-mixed Manhattan upon his return from work after a long, but successful day.

I would've had lots of projects and interests going on to keep me happily busy while my family was away at school and work and had the luxury of thinking about starting dinner around 3 pm. I wanted to be a stable, dependable presence; this was all I knew of my childhood with my mother who never worked after she married and even so, was one of the most interesting women I've ever had the pleasure to know. I wanted nothing more than to continue in her footsteps and, hopefully, do half as good a job. When my family grew older and more involved in interests outside the home, I would've pursued outside activities that interested me such as taking classes about whatever piqued my fancy, shelving books in the local library or offering my time doing something worthwhile with senior citizens or volunteering at the hospital.

Extra Credit: What did your parents want you to be when you grew up?

My parents wanted me to be a happy, well-adjusted person capable of adjusting to and handling the complexities of this thing called life. They wanted to be sure that I learned a skill(s) that would enable me to provide for myself if needs be. They did this by funding my business school education following my high school graduation. The rest was up to me. My parents have been absent from my life for almost ten years now and to this day, I still hope I continue to make them proud of me and never want to let them down. It never ends, this desire for approval, and this may be tantamount to a major ingredient to a successful life.