Katherine has spent a lot of time lately planning her future. Her long term future! Every day on the ride to and from school she plans out what she's going to do when she's grown up. Here are her plans so far:
She is going to live on a farm on the edge of town so she is in between town and the country. She will have a small barn. It will be red. She will have animals. The number and type vary from day to day, but horses and dogs are a must. They already have names, gender, and breeds. She will live in a two-storey house. With a garage. There will be a basement without windows, in case there is a tornado. After much debate, she has decided that there will be a chimney and a fireplace. A wood burning fireplace. Yesterday, she invited to to live next door. I told that would be nice!
Kate's class is writing a book about what they want to be when they grow up. So of course, future employment has been included in the plans. Katherine wants to be "a horse rider". Of course. I pointed out that horse riding is really more of a hobby and that she will probably need a real job. I think she was disappointed. We discussed various jobs and she announced that she was going to be a firefighter. I agreed that it was a good job, although personally, I had serious doubts about Kate being a firefighter. Mostly because Katherine is not at all brave, she hates to be physically uncomfortable, and she is terrified of fire. The next day she told me that she'd decided not to be a firefighter "because I don't like fire and because firefighters have to see people that get hurt and I don't want to see that." Good thinking! She went on. "I don't want to be a teacher because the kids are too wild." Um, yeah, that's true! She thought for a while and then said, "I think I'll be a lawyer. Like Robie." Yesterday she asked be what an "office job" was. I explained that some people spend all of their work day in an office, mostly at a desk. I thought of a few office jobs - secretary, someone who works on computers (I don't deal with a lot of office jobs, at least not many that can easily be explained to a 7 year old.). I told Kate there were people that did all the math for stores and companies. They were called accountants and kept track of everything that was bought or sold or spent. Katherine brightened, "Like they do math in a book?" Yes. "I like math! I could do that!" Hmmm... It would be an "office job", quiet, wouldn't require dealing with a lot of people, would give her lots of order and control. That just might be a good job for Katherine! And it would pay well so she could afford the barn and the horses. Now we just have to wait 20 years to see how it all pans out.