What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? Imagining the Future Through Theater

Children use a piece of fabric to create a symbolic passage into the future during a theater workshop.

This post has one simple aim: to make the case for a question that sometimes seems to bother parents more than children: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

More than once, after asking that question of friends’ or acquaintances’ children, I have heard the adults answer before the children even had a chance: “Forget it... There’s plenty of time... What a boring question...”

And I can see why. It sounds like the kind of question asked by relatives you see only at Christmas. In fact, when I was a child, that question made me a little anxious.

Working with children in theater workshops, however, I discovered that it is an important question—not so much because of the answers it produces, but because of what it sets in motion.

I remember a seven-year-old girl once telling me that she wanted to be a hairdresser when she grew up.

“Great,” I said. “Why don’t you tell us what you would like your salon to be like?”

She had clearly never thought about it. She replied that she wanted a small salon with no display windows, where perhaps someone might come in every now and then.

That answer struck me deeply. The girl was self-assured and not at all shy: what struck me was not the profession she had chosen, but the narrowness of the future she had described for herself.

That answer led to a discussion with the group. As I listened to the others, I realized that this was not an isolated case.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question that asks us to project ourselves into the future and imagine who we might become—and what happiness might look like for us.

More accurately, it should become: “When you grow up, what will you do to be happy?”

And I think imagining our own happiness is no small thing.

In fact, the answer itself is not important. We are not signing a contract that will force us to do or become whatever we say. We can change our minds a minute later, and as many times as we wish.

But when we project ourselves into the future in search of our happiness, we bring into view a path leading toward a goal. It does not matter how often we change route or destination: at almost any moment, we will know where we are going and why.

Of course, “I don’t know” is a perfectly legitimate answer. But I have wondered how often it comes from mental laziness or, worse, fear.

I explained to the children that imagining the future is wonderful because we can shape it into whatever makes us happiest. Knowing that we are moving toward our own happiness helps us face the future with less fear.

The children’s eyes lit up, and their dreams began to take shape.

Together with their classmates, we took turns bringing those dreams to life onstage, improvising the places and situations they had imagined.

Every so often, someone would look at me as if to ask: “Can I really imagine all of this?”

Of course you can.

We can imagine a thousand times and change our minds a thousand more. That is how we avoid standing still out of fear, waiting for something to happen that might make us happy without even knowing what it is.