I read about these career survey results today: “Number One Career Choice For American Kids is to be YouTubers, For Chinese Kids It’s an Astronaut”.
The slant of the article was that this was more evidence of American decline. However, it made me think of a recent conversation between me and the grandkids, which I have cartoon-ized below. What I didn’t put in was that after the woman’s movement made it realistic for girls to have career aspirations, there was a wave of the ‘drop out’ movement which kind of negated it for me. By the time I really did get a career, as a computer programmer, it wouldn’t have been my childhood dream job because it wasn’t really a career that could be imagined back then. So, in spite of the Chinese having the more science-y aspirations, it seems like progress has been made in that at least half the kids aren’t left out anymore in having career aspirations. And being a you-tuber is probably nice work if you can get it!
