Are you really Interested or skylarking?

This is a question parents need to ask, either directly or indirectly of their children.  It is a question which if asked timely enough, saves money and, of course, time.

The point is, many kids will say they want to be a [Fill in the Blank] when they grow up.  Whether this is true or false, fantasy or reality, a true vocation or just skylarking needs to be uncovered before hand is placed in pocket.

An Example

T. said he wanted to be an airline pilot from his earliest days.  No one in T’s family was an airline pilot.

T.’s parents learned, when T. was sixteen years old, how one goes for a private pilot’s license, then for a commercial license and on and on how one actually becomes a real pilot.

This costs a lot….  A LOT of money.
However, if their beloved child wanted to become a pilot, well, they’d find the money, somehow.

Any way, T. was taken to a small airfield just to look around and see how he felt about it.  He was able to sit in a plane, to see if it was what he thought.

After the exposure, as the family was about to leave the airfield, T said to his parents;

“Well, if you want me to become a pilot, you’ll have to buy me a car so I can get out to this airfield.”

The parents did not buy T a car. T never mentioned becoming a pilot again.

To spell it out for those who aren’t parents;  kids say they want something not because they want it, but because they want to test their parents.   They want to see how far they can go.

In T’s case, he didn’t really want to be a pilot, he just picked it cause it sounded like less school work than doctor or lawyer or engineer.   It sounded cool.

T’s parents saved a lot of money a T went on to get a job in an office when he left High School, because T really didn’t have great ambition.

When T’s parents recounted the story of the going to the air field, the six figures it would cost to have T trained, most of the other parents were stunned that they could have even thought of putting themselves into such debt.

T’s mother laughed; “I know T.  he never had intention of being a pilot.  It was just something that he says, ”

“How?” The other parents asked; “How could you know he didn’t really want to be a pilot?”

“Interest.  If he has collected planes, if he wanted to go to the airport to see planes take off and land, if he wanted to see movies about planes, if he looked up every time a plane flew over heard, yes, this is a person who is interested.  He never did.  It was just something to say.”

R’s parents were not as astute.

R said she wanted to be a lawyer and her parents had to pay real money for her to start a course at a non-name brand school.   Daddy paid for that first year; Daddy paid a lot of money.  At the end of the year, R said she had changed her mind.

A friend of the family told the parents that R never wanted to be a lawyer, she was just skylarking.

“How could you say that?” the mother snorted.

“Easy.  Did your daughter show any interest in meeting and talking to a lawyer?  You know lawyers.  If she was really interested she would have wanted to spend the summer ‘interning’ with one of your lawyer friends.  She would have wanted to see what it was like, did she?”

“No.”

The fact is many kids will express an interest in some profession.  They are not really interested. They are just saying it.  They are saying it because something about it attracts them.   It sounds cool.  It shuts people up.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“An Astronaut.”

The difference between T’s parents and R’s is that T’s knew this and saved xyz dollars, R’s parents didn’t know this, so wasted a lot of money.