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Comment by computronus | Hacker News Reader

they'll probably change their minds by the time they grow up anyway

The poll was conducted on 8 - 12 year olds (https://theharrispoll.com/lego-group-kicks-off-global-progra...) so I agree that there's time. When I was on the younger end of that range, I wanted to be a garbage collector, probably because it seemed like it'd be great to ride on the back of that big truck. I might have gotten wiser with age.

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At that age I was terrified of being an astronaut after watching Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. I laid up at night scared until my father told me that the astronaut selection process wasn't a random national lottery and I had nothing to worry about.

And at 8, my sister said she wanted to be a rabbit when she grew up. We found the class assignment to prove it when going through our old stuff in the attic.

We had a Richard Scarry book that had animals dressed up as different professions. While reading the book my parents asked my sister what she wanted to be when she grew up. My sister immediately responded "a hippo", which was fine with my parents because the hippo was dressed as a doctor.

Now she is a data scientist, which probably didn't exist when that book was written.

> I wanted to be a garbage collector

I used to say that (from age six) to dissuade further questioning from dull adults. It usually worked.

I used to say "I want to be a junkie when I grow up" because there was this series of anti-drug commercials that would end with the line "Nobody ever says they want to be a junkie when they grow up" and I wanted to prove them wrong.

Did you achieve your dreams?

Not that one.

When I was 5 or 6 I wanted to drive one of those cute little dumper trucks on a building site.

> I wanted to be a garbage collector,

Did you have a poster of John McCarthy on your wall as a child?

A Shirley Manson poster at least?

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