Most parents hope their kids grow up to be doctors, lawyers or super-star athletes, but I’m kind of a rare breed, I guess. We talk a lot with the boys about being successful in life but we rarely talk about it in terms of salaries. Maybe we took some cues from our semi-hippy parents, but Hubbit and I have implanted within them the logic they should only do things in life they love.
Yes, I am the mother who let her son quit soccer after only one practice because he hated it, the mother who believes not every career requires a college degree and the mother who would be just as proud of her son for LOVING his job as a starving artist as I would if he were to choose medical school solely for the paycheck.
Listen, we preach you have to work HARD. We just don’t preach what you should work hard AT.
Do you hate me yet? Surely not.
The funny thing is I never realized how our light-hearted view on success in life translated to our kids. But, tonight I got a quick clue!
Hubbit, Flea, Bug and I were all riding in the Swagger Wagon, on our way home from a quick shopping trip. On our way to our house we passed a few neighborhoods which contain beautiful homes, situated behind a lovely brick wall. Our trip past these homes prompted the following conversation...
Bug: Why is there a wall around those houses?
Hubbit: Well, it offers privacy to the people who live in those homes.
Bug: Why don’t we have privacy?!
Me: Um, because our home doesn’t cost $1 million dollars like those homes do, Love.
Bug: When I grow up, I want one of those houses.
Me: I really hope you are able to afford one someday, Honey.
Bug: I’d need a really good job.
Hubbit: Yep.
Bug: So, what job makes the most money? A circus clown? (spoken as SERIOUS as can be)
Me: Huh? If your goal is to own a $1 million dollar home, you may want to try medical school. Maybe you could become a plastic surgeon.
Bug: I don’t want to go to REAL college, I want to go to CLOWN college. I already know the clown walk and everything. Want me to teach you?
Hubbit/Me: (giggle)
Bug: If I don’t go to clown college, maybe I could play baseball for the Legends so I could get one of those big ol’ fat houses!
Me: Honey, minor league baseball players make a lot less than your dad makes and we can’t afford one of those houses.
Bug: Hmm.
I just wonder if no one worried about how much money they’d not-make doing so, how many of us would have by-passed REAL college and would have opted for CLOWN college instead.
Whitney
“A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast.” (Groucho Marx)
That is awesome! Maybe the world needs a million dollar clown...
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