As some of you may know my oldest child Madzilla just graduated from High School a few weeks ago. Days leading up to her graduation I would start tearing at the thought, but on the day she walked up to the podium to grab her empty green Longwood High School diploma holder, I did not shed a tear. Instead, I sighed. Strangely enough it wasn't a sigh of relief. I am not sure what I was feeling, but it was odd & it wasn't from the mimosas hidden in my backpack. I cried for days when she went off to kindergarten. I cried when she got her first ribbon at the Hampton Classic. I cried when she left for prom. I even cried when she went on her first date in a car with a boy. I am such a pussy...
From the day tiny humans are able to carry a conversation they have been asked, "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" I know I have been asked a million times. Let's see...I wanted to be an astronaut, a vet, a musician, a ninja, the Bionic Woman(of course I didn't realize I would have to lose my limbs for this and possibly an eye and an ear drum), Batman, a Crayola crayon color namer & a police officer just to name a few. Curiously nobody ever asked me "who" I wanted to be.
Now that I am a mother of a graduate who is moving onto college this fall, I am inundated with the age old question..."What does she want to be?" That is all you hear people say every June. Do they really know? I still don't know and I am 41. Eeeek. They are just children going off for expensive schooling and having to choose a career. Of course I love that Madzilla wants to be a Large Animal Vet and like everything else she does (besides keeping her room clean) she will excel at it. Really though at this stage of her life, I am more concerned with who she wants to be and I think that is a question that should be asked more often.
So I did just that at a table of teenagers recently by first asking, "What do you guys want to be?". They rattled off everything from the medical field to teaching to computers. (Except for the Kracken at age 13 said the question bothers her.) Then I asked, "WHO do you want to be?" CRICKETS. Lots & lots of crickets. They looked at me like I mind fucked every one of them. They had no idea how to answer it and just stared at me. One even said, "Oh my god, you just blew my mind & I don't know what to say."
With social media taking over the world, I feel like our children are slaves to technology. Too much instant gratification and not enough thinking for themselves. It's all about right now and it has made them very lazy. Who cares about 20 years from now. I will deal with that later. Well, for me it's twenty three years later & I am a mother scared for her children. Know who you want to be before knowing what you want to be. I've told my kids to strive to be a better person for yourself and not for what you think social media wants you to be. You are not your tumblr account or your twitter account or how many "friends" you have on Facebook. Who follows you on twitter does not define who you are. You are the future and from where I stand, that's a scary thought.
Of course this is just my opinion. Who do I want to be? Here is my short answer...I want to be the one my children say make them laugh & learn from even though I am a complete maniac. Who am I? I am Batman. HA HA HA kidding. I am just a girl in love with laughter who cracks up at herself everyday in the hopes that I crack you up too.
Are YOU who you want to be?
Yea so I kinda screwed with you on the title. It's the only funny thing in this post. Every once in awhile the Why So Serious Funtasian comes out. See what I did there? Thanks for stopping by and for your support.
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