What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Transgender or Not …
Musings on identity and happiness
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
Is there an adult on the planet who gained majority without hearing this bastard hydra of a torture garden disguised as an innocent question? I hope so. That’s one fortunate soul.
What’s even being asked? And perhaps far more disconcertingly, why? Do we really expect a considered, much less realistic, answer from a human whose age is still measured with a single digit, or else burdened with the litany of confusions that dog our years ending in the suffix ‘-teen’?
I’m 53. I’ve owned 4 or 5 houses (and that alone speaks volumes, little of it good). I’ve been married twice. I’m a parent and a stepparent. I even managed to hold down a full-time job with a single employer for over a decade. By most people’s standards I’m an adult, then.
So why do I care about this hateful little shit of a question?
Perhaps a small anecdote might shed some light. I grew up in a working-class family, one which hoped I might do better at life than they had. Inevitably, I was asked this question. But it’s not the asking I remember. Rather what burns bright is the embarrassment I felt, without even understanding my shame’s genesis, when my mother asked me…
