child's dream essay

THEIR OWN PATH: Why you should support your child’s dreams

How many parents want their children to be doctors, or lawyers, or world-renowned scientists? Probably every parent. They want that so much that they could end up discouraging their children from what they really want to do.

Throughout my childhood , I wanted to be many different things, from an artist, to an explorer, to a physicist, to a teacher. And, here’s the thing: only one of those careers would be supported by a large number of parents. Can you guess which one it is?

I have firsthand experience with what I’m talking about. When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I thought, “I want to be a teacher.” So I told my parents, and, while my dad was perfectly fine with it, my mom’s answer was a straight up “No.”  How did you think it felt to have a dream, a goal, shot down? Not very good.

Before this, in third grade, I wrote my first story and self-published it. It was titled “Unihorn’s Adventures.” A cute little children’s story… but that one little story led to so much more.

As I entered middle school, I started writing more. Short stories became my specialty. I even entered one into a contest and got in the top thirty out of hundreds of entries in my category. But, thanks to my mom, my real dream was put on pause in my seventh grade year.

I was taking life science in seventh grade, and became so interested in human biology. My mom used that interest, along with her dream of being a doctor, and, suddenly, I was saying, “I want to be a neurosurgeon.”

Then came eighth grade. The year that would ultimately change my life and my fate. I started wondering if I should be a neuroscientist instead of a neurosurgeon. Then, when we were writing thesis papers in English class, I offered to help my friend edit hers. And she said to me the day after I helped her edit, “It was like having an English professor.” Something clicked right then. I spent the next two periods thinking, “I do love English, and writing, of course. I want to open a nonprofit organization to teach reading and writing…  and I do want to be some sort of a professor… but I want to be a neurosurgeon, or neuroscientist…right?” At lunchtime, I said to my friend, “I want to be an English professor and an author.” Just like that, because of her little comment… my life changed.

I started looking for newspapers to submit op-eds to, for virtual writing internships… that’s how I found The Mindful Word. I searched fiercely, and even started writing a novel. I was determined to change the destiny my mom had set for me and show her what I really  wanted to be… but I didn’t have the guts to tell her.

One morning, after I had been looking for virtual writing internships, as had been the usual for a little while, my mom told me to stop always looking for those things. She said I was losing focus of my path and that there weren’t many writing opportunities out there for a career. She said that maybe I could write for a newspaper on the side when I was older. Then she made the most unbelievable comment that I will never forget: “If you want to contribute to society, be a doctor or a scientist.”

I haven’t given up on my dream. If anything, I’ve decided that what I really want to be is an English professor, and being a published author would be an amazing, miraculous addition. Parents, don’t make the same mistake my mother did. Unless your child wants to be something dangerous, unlawful, unhealthy, et cetera… support them. My bond with my mother can never be the same because of her not supporting me. If you do not support your child’s dream and they follow the path you set for them, they can never be truly happy. If you do not support them, and they go on the path they set for themselves, and you shut them out because of it, they can never be truly happy, either. Support is a huge part of love, so, without support, where’s the love?

We will all travel down paths in life, whether they be rocky, steep or they cross a river. However it will be, do not put your child down your path because we can never travel exactly in the footprints made before us. We all eventually branch off to our own path. Support your children’s dreams, to maintain the love, to maintain their happiness … so that they can go down their own path.

What a wonderful counsel! I hope parents are able to listen! It was laughable, in my days of growing up, to expect support from a family, for most of us, I think. I wanted to be a writer from very early on, and the cliche’ from nearly everyone in my family was “you can write on the side.” Once, when I was a little older, I went over to my grandmother, pulled up my shirt, and actually wrote on my side!

I’m glad you’re pursuing your dream and recognize the dynamics that you have to transcend. I was thinking of a quote from James Joyce, and it turns out it isn’t exactly as I’d “remembered”. I thought he had added “family” to this list. One certainly must often “fly past” the nets of others’ dreams for oneself! Here’s the quote: “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.” (A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man)

I’ve been writing all my life, and I believe it may be a GOOD thing there isn’t a lot of money involved! I was once, years ago, a painter whose work WAS selling in a gallery, and I feel that had an adverse effect on my art… it became “almost authentic” instead of “made entirely of blood and love and struggle.” But that’s a whole other discussion. Best wishes and prayers for your continued courage in making your own decisions!

Thank you very much, Max Reif! I’m glad you liked my article, and am happy that others are able to relate to it. Too often we do not support others’ dreams, even those we love. And what that can do to a friendship, relationship, bond, is unbelievable. I, too, hope that parents are able to listen, but often it is hard to see what you may be doing wrongly. Sometimes, though, we do need a splash of honesty to wake us up.

This really touched me. I’m going through this situation right now, and I just don’t know what to do with myself. Like you, I started writing the second I could pick up a pencil, (16 now), and after a lot of soul searching, I realized that my true passions are music and writing. My dream is to be a professional songwriter and recording engineer but my mother doesn’t want to hear it. In fact, she refers to my dream as “crap”, or the “career for the lucky.” I just want to prove her wrong.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Dream — The Difficult Path: My Dreams and Goals in Life

The Difficult Path: My Dreams and Goals in Life

• Categories: Dream Life Goals

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Words: 1934 |

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Published: Jun 5, 2019

Words: 1934 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Works Cited

• Emmons, R. A. (2003). Flourishing: The positive person and the good life. American Psychologist, 58(1), 100-110.
• Hubbard, E. (n.d.). Elbert Hubbard quotes. Goodreads. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/412-there-is-no-failure-except-in-no-longer-trying
• Latham, G. P. (2004). The motivational benefits of goal-setting. Academy of Management Perspectives, 18(4), 126-129.
• Pausch, R., & Zaslow, J. (2008). The last lecture. Hachette UK.
• Stapp, B. (2009). Myths and realities of professional singing. Indiana University Press.
• Turkay, S. (2015). Setting goals: Who, why, how? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 42(1), 8-13.

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Frontiers for Young Minds

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The Science of Dreams

Dreams are a common experience. Some are scary, some are funny. Recent research into how the brain works helps us understand why we dream. Strange combinations of ideas in our dreams may make us more creative and give us ideas that help us to solve problems. Or, when memories from the day are repeated in the brain during sleep, memories may get stronger. Dreams may also improve our moods. Together, these studies show that dreams and sleep are important for performing well when we are awake.

When she was 8, my daughter told me about one of her dreams. She was in a spaceship with some animals. Although she knew she was in a spaceship in her dream, when telling me about the dream, she realized the spaceship was actually a washing machine. At times, she and the animals would be out in space, but they also came back to earth. She told me the dream with a laugh and then moved on with her day, ignoring the crazy animals and spaceships that entertained her in her sleep.

Since we remember our dreams and then often forget them, what is their purpose? Why do we dream about the things we do? New research tools, particularly those that can be used to investigate the brain, are being used to answer these questions.

What Are Dreams?

Although it is hard to define what a dream is, for the purpose of this article, we will define dreams as our thoughts during sleep that we recall when we wake up. So, sleeping dreams are not the same as “daydreaming.” Dreams are mostly visual (made up of scenes and faces; sound, taste, and smell are rare in dreams [ 1 ]). Dreams can range from truly strange to rather boring, snapshots from a recent event.

To study dreams, scientists need a measure of dreaming. Most studies use dream reports (a person writes out her dreams when she wakes up) or questionnaires (a person answers questions like “How many dreams have you recalled in the past month?” [ 2 ]). Dreams are more likely to be recalled when a person is woken up from REM sleep. REM sleep is a type of sleep that is named for the rapid eye movements that can be measured during this stage of sleep. We do not dream as much in non-REM sleep, the sleep stages that make up the rest of the night, and dream reports from non-REM sleep are often less strange.

Dream frequency (how often dreams happen) and content (what dreams are about) is very different for everyone, and there are many reasons why this may be true. For example, you will remember dreams more if you are woken up by someone or by an alarm clock. This might be because you can still recall that dream memory while it is fresh but, if you wake up on your own, you will transition through a few sleep stages and possibly lose that dream memory. Dream recall changes with age, too. Older people are less likely to report dreaming. This could also be related to memory: since older people have weaker memories, it could be that they dream but cannot remember their dreams by the time they wake up. A brain area called the medial prefrontal cortex is also related to dream recall. If this brain area is damaged, the person recalls few dreams, which may mean the person dreams less (or not at all). Also, how tightly packed the brain cells are in the medial prefrontal cortex can vary from person to person, which may cause some healthy people to dream more or less than other healthy people. There are also genes that affect how much REM sleep people get. People with less REM sleep may not have the strange dreams that tend to come in REM. So, how long you sleep, your age, and your genetics may all explain why you dream more or less than someone else.

Do dreams actually happen while we sleep, or are they ideas that come to us when we wake up and we just “feel” like it happened during sleep? A recent study using a type of brain imaging called magnetic resonance imaging or (MRI: Read more in the Young Minds article “How Is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Used to Learn About the Brain?” [ 3 ]) helped answer this question ( Figure 1A ). The scientists made maps of the brain activity that occurred when people looked at pictures of things—keys, beds, airplanes. Later, the people in the study slept in the MRI machine. The scientists matched the pattern of brain activity from the people as they slept to brain activity patterns for the pictures they viewed earlier, and then chose the best match ( Figures 1B,C ). This match predicted what the person said they dreamed about 60% of the time. Although 60% is not perfect, it is better than guessing! [ 4 ]. This means that dreams are created in the brain during sleep.

• Figure 1 - (A) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a way to investigate the brain.
• The person lies on a bed inside a giant magnet. (B) MRI can measure the structure of the brain and the areas of the brain that are active. (C) MRI was used to measure dreaming. First, while the participant was awake, they viewed thousands of pictures in the MRI. This told scientists the specific brain responses to specific pictures. Later, when the participant slept in the MRI, scientists measured the brain activity patterns and matched this to the brain responses to the pictures the participant saw when they were awake. Scientists guessed that the best match would tell them what the participant was dreaming about. By asking the participant about their dreams in the MRI, scientists found that the dreams did tend to match the pictures predicted by the brain activity.

Dreams Support Memories

What is the purpose of our dreams? Researchers have found that sleep is important for memory (see this Frontiers for Young Minds article ; “Thanks for the Memories…” [ 5 ]). Memories move from temporary storage in the hippocampus , a brain structure that is very important for short-term memory, to permanent storage in other parts of the brain. This makes the memories easier to remember later. Memories improve with sleep because the memories are replayed during sleep [ 6 ]. If you want to learn all the words to your favorite scene in a movie, you might re-watch that scene over and over again. The brain works the same way: neurons (brain cells) that are active with learning are active again and replay the learned material during sleep. This helps store the memory more permanently.

Memory replay may show up in our dreams. Dreams in non-REM sleep, when most memory replay happens, often contain normal people and objects from recent events. However, sleep switches between non-REM and REM sleep (see Figure 2 ). So, bizarre dreams in REM sleep may come from a combination of many different recent memories, which were replayed in non-REM sleep, and get jumbled up during REM sleep. If dreams help with memory processing, does that mean your memories are not being processed if you do not dream? No. Memories are moving to storage even if we do not dream.

• Figure 2 - There are four types of sleep—REM sleep (purple) and three stages of non-REM sleep (blue).
• REM stands for rapid eye movements, which happen during this stage of sleep. During REM sleep, muscle and brain activity also differ from other sleep stages. Characteristics of dreams tend to be different for each of these sleep stages.

Dreams Improve Creativity and Problem Solving

My daughter’s dream of a spaceship made a great story that she recited to me, and later, to her classmates. The images were intense and interesting, inspiring her to draw scenes in a notebook and write about the dream for school. This is an example of how dreams can help make us more creative. Mary Shelley, the author of the book Frankenstein, got the idea for her book from a dream. Even scientists get ideas from dreams [ 7 ].

To measure creative problem solving, scientists used a remote associates task, in which three unrelated words are shown, and the person is to come up with a word they have in common. For instance, HEART, SIXTEEN, and COOKIES seem unrelated until you realize they all are related to SWEET (sweetheart, sweet sixteen, and cookies are sweet) ( Figure 3 ). The scientists wanted to see whether sleep helped people do better on this task. They found that people were better at thinking of the remote solution if they had a nap, particularly a nap with REM sleep. Given that REM is when most bizarre dreaming occurs, this supports the idea that these dreams might help us find creative solutions to problems [ 8 ].

• Figure 3 - REM sleep helps people find creative solutions.
• In the morning, participants did two tasks to test creativity and problem solving (A) . They did one task again in the afternoon. In between, they either stayed awake (“wake” group) or took a nap. Those that took naps either did not have REM sleep in their nap (“nREM” group) or had both nREM and REM sleep (“nREM + REM” group). (B) If subjects stayed awake between the morning and afternoon tests (yellow bar), they did not improve on the task. They also did not improve if they had a nap that was only nREM sleep (light blue bar). But, if they had a nap with both nREM and REM sleep, they did better in the afternoon compared with when they did the task in the morning (dark blue bar). So, REM sleep must help us find creative solutions (from Cai et al. [ 8 ]).

This study and research like it gives us reason to believe that REM dreams may help us be more creative and solve problems. Many different memories may be activated at the same time and when these memories are mixed together, the result when we wake up may be both the memory of a strange dream and a unique perspective on problems.

Dreams Regulate Our Moods and Emotions

Dreams are usually emotional. One study found that most dreams are scary, angry, or sad.

Dreams might seem to be emotional simply because we tend to remember emotional things better than non-emotional things. For example, in waking life, the day you got a puppy is more memorable than a normal school day. So, dreams about emotional events might be remembered more easily than boring, non-emotional dreams. It is also possible that dreams are emotional because one job of dreams is to help us process emotions from our day [ 9 ]. This may be why the amygdala , an area of the brain that responds to emotions when we are awake, is active during REM sleep. If you had a sad day, you are more likely to have sad dreams. But, sleep also improves mood–sleep after a disagreement or sad event will make you happier.

Dreams could also help prepare us for emotional events, through something called threat simulation theory [ 10 ]. For example, when I dreamt that my young daughter, who could not swim, fell into a swimming pool, recall of that dream convinced me to sign her up for swim lessons. By simulating this fearful situation, I could prevent it by being prepared.

These studies show us that sleep and dreams are important for our emotions. By processing emotions in sleep, we may be better prepared and in a better mood the next day.

Conclusions

There are different ways scientists measure dreams—from asking questions to using MRI. These studies show us that activity in the brain while we sleep gives us the interesting dreams we recall when we wake up. These dreams help us remember things, be more creative, and process our emotions.

We know most kids do not get enough sleep. Some diseases (like Alzheimer’s disease) also make people sleep less, while others (like REM sleep behavior disorder and mood disorders) affect dreams directly. It is important to study sleep and dreams to understand what happens when we do not get enough sleep and how we can treat people with these diseases.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) : ↑ A stage of sleep in which the eyes move rapidly and there is no muscle activity.

Medial Prefrontal Cortex : ↑ A specific area in the front of the brain that is associated with dream recall but also has a role in memory and decision-making.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) : ↑ A tool used to take pictures of internal body parts (including the brain). MRI can also be used to measure the activity in the brain.

Hippocampus : ↑ An area in the brain that is thought to be important for short-term memory.

Neuron : ↑ A cell in the nervous system (brain and spinal cord) that can transmit information to other cells.

Amygdala : ↑ An area of the brain involved in the experience of emotions.

Threat Simulation Theory : ↑ A theory of dreaming that says that threats (things that could be bad) are simulated or practiced in your dreams to prepare you for those situations when you are awake.

1. ↑ Zandra, A. L., Nielsen, T. A., and Donderi, D. C. 1998. Prevalence of auditory, olfactory, and gustatory experiences in home dreams. Percept. Mot. Skills 87:819–26.

2. ↑ Schredl, M. 2002. Questionnaires and diaries as research instruments in dream research: methodological issues. Dreaming 12:17–26. doi: 10.1023/A:1013890421674

3. ↑ Hoyos, P., Kim, N., and Kastner, S. 2019. How Is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Used to Learn About the Brain? Front. Young Minds . 7:86. doi: 10.3389/frym.2019.00086

4. ↑ Horikawa, T., Tamaki, M., Miyawaki, Y., and Kamitani, T. 2013. Neural decoding of visual imagery during sleep. Science 340:639–42. doi: 10.1126/science.1234330

5. ↑ Davachi, L., and Shohamy, D. 2014. Thanks for the Memories.… Front. Young Minds. 2:23. doi: 10.3389/frym.2014.00023

6. ↑ O’Neill, J., Senior, T. J., Allen, K., Huxter, J. R., and Csicsvari, J. 2008. Reactivation of experience-dependent cell assembly patterns in the hippocampus. Nat. Neurosci . 11:209–15. doi: 10.1038/nn2037

7. ↑ Barrett, D. 2001. The Committee of Sleep: How artists, scientists, and athletes use dreams for creative problem-solving–and How You Can Too . New York, NY: Crown.

8. ↑ Cai, D. J., Mednick, S. A., Harrison, E. M., Kanady, J. C., and Mednick, S. C. 2009. REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A . 106:10130–4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900271106

9. ↑ Cremone, A., Kurdziel, L. B. F., Fraticelli, A., McDermott, J., and Spencer, R. M. C. 2017. Napping reduces emotional attention bias during early childhood. Dev. Sci . 20:e12411. doi: 10.1111/desc.12411

10. ↑ Revonsuo, A. 2000. The reinterpretation of dreams: an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behav. Brain Sci . 23:877–901. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x00004015

Childhood Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on childhood.

Childhood is the most fun and memorable time in anyone’s life. It’s the first stage of life which we enjoy in whatever way we like. Besides, this is the time that shapes up the future. The parents love and care for their children and the children to the same too. Moreover, it’s the golden period of life in which we can teach children everything.

Memories of Childhood

The memories of childhood ultimately become the life long memory which always brings a smile on our faces. Only the grownups know the real value of childhood because the children do not understand these things.

Moreover, Children’s have no worries, no stress, and they are free from the filth of worldly life. Also, when an individual collects memories of his/her childhood they give a delighted feeling.

Besides, bad memories haunt the person his entire life. Apart from this, as we grow we feel more attachment to our childhood and we want to get back those days but we can’t. That’s why many people say ‘time is neither a friend nor a foe’. Because the time which is gone can’t come back and neither do our childhood. It is a time which many poets and writer praises in their creations.

Importance of Childhood

For children, it has no importance but if you ask an adult it is very important. Moreover, it a time when the moral and social character of the children develop. In this stage of life, we can easily remodel the mindset of someone.

Also, it is very important to understand that the mindset of children can be easily altered in this time. So, we have to keep a close eye on our children.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

What Should You Do in Childhood?

In childhood, one should need to enjoy his/her life without any worry. It is a time in which one should have to take care of his diet, his health, and immunity. Besides, the children should be taught to be neat and clean, to eat, read, sleep, play, and to do exercise regularly and these things should be in the habits of the child.

Moreover, we should try to influence children to start productive habits such as reading, writing that should help them in later life. But the books they read and what they write should be carefully checked by the parents.

Care for Everyone

Children are like buds, they care for everyone equally without any discrimination. Also, they are of helpful nature and help everyone around them.

Moreover, they teach everyone the lesson of humanity that they have forgotten in this hectic lifestyle of this world. Besides, these children are the future of the country and if they do not grow properly then in future how can they help in the growth of the nation .

In conclusion, we can say that childhood is the time that makes our adulthood special. Also, children’s are like pottery vessels whom you can shape in any way you like. Besides, this their innocence and helpful nature gives everyone the message of humanity.

Most importantly, they learn by either making mistakes or seeing their elders.

FAQs about Childhood

Q.1 Why childhood is the best period of life? A.1 It is the best time of life because the memories that we make in our childhood always brings a smile on our face. Also, it is the time when the character of the child is shaped. Besides, it also is the best time to understand life and gain knowledge.

Q.2 What is the most important characteristics of a child? A.2 According to me, the most important characteristics of a child is his innocence and helpful nature.

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Personal Essay: Childhood Dreams

Couldn’t find very many relevant photos of me as a child for this post, as I write most of my blog posts last-minute and didn’t give my parents ANY time to look for ’em. ;) But here are three from my awkward middle school days! And yes, I made the above car out of a refrigerator box, complete with a parking pass for the train to NYC. One of the biggest accomplishments of my 13 years…

Last week, I launched a new series on the blog: Personal Essays . I did it for a few reasons. First, writing posts that are part of a series has proven to help me stay organized and have fewer late-night blogging sessions. (Oh, I haven’t yet written a post for the ____ series this week. Perfect! Let’s get started on that…)  Second, I want to write more deeply on the blog, and these “personal essays” hold me accountable for that. (Being a well-rounded blogger has always been a struggle because I so often fail to see the bigger picture. This helps, though.) Third, writing in longer form is cathartic for me. (Yes, I’m aware of how dorky that probably sounds. But I love writing, and I’ve always used it as a way to peel away from the chaos of everyday life!)

Today’s topic is a bit more lighthearted than last week’s , but I’m thinkin’ that’s a good thing. No need to start the weekend off on a sour note, right?!

Today I’m talking about a few dreams I had as a kid, and how, if at all, they transpired later in life. :) I should, however, preface this with the fact that I was an obsessive kid. Like, if I was into collecting lizards stuffed with sand , I was really into collecting lizards stuffed with sand. Truth: I probably had 45 of them, all purchased with hard-earned money from chores and odd jobs, and all lined up in rows on my shelves. (I wish I had photographic evidence of these little guys, but alas. Still a few rogue lizards laying around my childhood bedroom, though. I’ll be sure to Insta Story them the next time I’m home, haha.)

Anyway … here we go!

Childhood Dreams

Again, a totally irrelevant photo. But here I am with my first dog, Patch. And there Patch is to the right as a puppy, so you can actually see his face. ;)

Become an Olympic gymnast

It all started with my aunts. They were gymnasts, and I loved their stories. And then I found this book about Olga Korbut in my elementary school library, and I fell in love with everything about gymnastics. My dad even built me a balance beam and set up a trampoline in the backyard so I could practice at home. I distinctly remember watching the 1996 Olympic Games on vacation in Ocean City and  ugly crying  as the Magnificent Seven were awarded their gold medals. I saved every newspaper clipping and pasted it into my scrapbook; I attended the “Tour of Champions” after the Games ended. (Where I met Dominique Moceanu and Shannon Miller, and got Shannon Miller’s autograph! Almost died of happiness.) In short, I was  obsessed .

How that transpired

It didn’t, haha. I wasn’t any good, and I only really liked the floor exercise and playing on the Tumble Trak and trampoline. I remember at one point, after learning how to do a “kip” on the bars, being like, “… and that’s that .” (Side note: how adorable are those British girls?! The cutest!) Just wasn’t into it, and yikes: there was no freakin’ way I was agreeing to do what came next. I mean, why was no one else concerned about the fact that we could DIE doing that stuff?!

(I suppose the one cool thing that came from it is I can still do a back handspring and back flip on the trampoline, which, at my age… is kind of something? Or maybe not, considering it’s the only athletic thing I can do at this point, and it’s not like I currently have a trampoline in my backyard. Lord help me at yoga this weekend with my friends. Should be pretty hilarious! But oh my gosh: Did I ever tell you the time Mitch jumped THROUGH my childhood trampoline? My dad high-fived him, but I was devastated.)

There was a silver lining to my non-existent gymnastics story, though. My three cousins–Mackenzie, Brenna and Olivia–became superstar gymnasts, and they competed for years and years and years, which was so much fun. I loved following along with their careers, and loved watching and rooting for them. Olivia is actually still competing! She’s the captain of the William & Mary gymnastics team this year, and she’s incredible. You can watch her here . I KNOW! Insane! My sister-in-law, Kim , was also a superstar gymnast back in the day, so it’s really nice to be able to freak out over competitions together. ;)

Oh! And this is really cute: Mitch is super into technology, and he has our television set up to record every single gymnastics program that’s aired. So THAT’S awesome. Emma also realized how important it was for me to be able to watch the 2016 Olympic Games; she arrived a week beforehand so I could watch them at home while recovering! Such a sweetie pie. ;) She wore this . Note the gymnasts. And how tiny she is!

Become a Broadway actress/singer

Okay, really I should say that I just wanted to be Little Orphan Annie. Again, obsessed with that musical, and my childhood best friend and I must have put on a zillion “shows” of our own for our poor parents and neighbors. I’d spend hours in my basement trying to sound just like Andrea McArdle… or Aileen Quinn, who, coincidentally, is from Yardley, where my parents moved us when I was in high school. (Part of the reason I didn’t put up a fight when they told me we were moving.) Guys, I was Little Orphan Annie for Halloween one year. I wore a clown wig, because where else do you get a curly red wig?

Not at ALL. While I briefly took some acting and singing classes for a couple of summers, I was much too shy and nervous to actually speak up or sing. I did get to be Annie during a talent show once, and I almost sang “Tomorrow” during an audition in middle school… but then completely chickened out and sang “Do Re Mi” very softly instead. I’m sure you can imagine how that turned out. Ended up being cast as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz, haha. Later in life, though, I got pretty into country music, and I learned how to (poorly) play a bit of guitar. I still play from time to time, and Emma and I have such a blast with it. It makes me happy, even though I’m not very good. ;)

Become an author

I vividly remember the day when I realized I loved the written word. I was in the first grade, living on Long Island, attending Saint Agnes . The library had just received “Samantha Saves the Day,”  and I couldn’t get over how incredible the author, Valerie Tripp, was. Every word spoke to me, and I had to have that book. So I sat down with it and proceeded to copy as many pages as I could. I got to page five, became overwhelmed, and started crying. The teacher had to hug me to stop my tears. It was really embarrassing.

In the years that followed, I created my own printing press in my basement. Instead of copying already published books, though, I “published” my own, using composition notebooks, construction paper and a whole lot of Elmer’s Glue. Most of the books lacked endings, as I loved starting stories but found great difficulty in finishing them. But they were all lined up in a row on a shelf, just like those lizards. One day, I promised myself, I’d actually  publish a novel.

While I never published a novel, I did end up working in the editorial field for a few years. In college, I was the news editor for Fairfield University’s student newspaper, and then I interned and semi-worked at the Hartford Courant. (One of the happiest days of my life was finding my story–about a woman who had a real stuffed elephant in her house–on the front page, albeit in the Sunday edition, of the paper. Literally cried. I’ll never forget that elephant.) After that, I was an online news editor for Nielsen, and then I taught eighth grade English in the New York City Department of Education for a few years. (They even let me teach journalism for a couple of semesters!) Now I do this weird blogging thing on the internet, but it’s low-key and it does allow me to write on a daily basis. Do I miss reporting? Yes, but it was a tough lifestyle to uphold. It’s also nice not having to report on murders on a daily basis. ;) Here at Kellyinthecity.com, things are a bit more lax, and no one really cares if my exhausted self makes a few mistakes or breaks out of AP Style. (Thanks, guys!) And we rarely talk or think about murder. (Though there was that Sophie incident…) Oh! And I can self-publish without Elmer’s Glue.

So that’s something.

What were your childhood dreams? Tell me you collected lizards, too.

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