There’s not a person alive who can claim that he never had some goofy or unusual aspiration when he was a kid, and I’m no different. Some people wanted to be professional sports players when they grew up (some still aspire to it today); others wanted to be firemen or police officers while others wanted to become something different every day. As for me, I wanted to be a dinosaur. That’s right. Little, six-year-old AJ Simmons dreamed big, for he wanted to grow up to become a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
To avoid being on the receiving end of any strange looks from passerby after this article is published, I feel I should restate the fact that I was six-years-old when I had this aspiration. I would watch cartoons and see T-Rex – the biggest, meanest dinosaur in all of prehistory – and I would think about how much I preferred that thought over the idea of being forced by my sisters to play house. Can you honestly blame me? My options were to either wish I could be T-Rex or face another day playing the part of the butler in my sisters’ Playskool house. I think any sound-minded young dinosaur fan would have had the same aspiration.
Typically, there is a slight divide between genders in terms of childhood aspirations. Young boys who spend their days rolling in dirt and beating the tar out of each other usually dream of being professional athletes or the Heavyweight Champion of the World one day. Young girls who play house or Barbies are often bearing very different aspirations from their male counterparts.
However, for every rule, there are always exceptions. For example, there are countless tomboys who would rather wrestle and play in the mud with the boys instead of playing with an Easy-Bake Oven. Conversely, there are plenty of young boys who are more than happy to play house with the girls.
When push comes to shove, I think that most children have some sort of wacky dream. Sure, growing up to become a T-Rex is a little bit out there as far as childhood aspirations go. But is it any less obtainable than a young girl who wants to grow up to become the Princess of America? Does is seem any stranger than a little boy who wants to grow up to become the Incredible Hulk? It’s very easy to look at a child’s aspirations and think that they’re silly or unusual. As people grow older, they look back at those dreams and think of how strange they might have been. But to tell you the truth, I think the idea of romping around as a T-Rex is still awfully appealing.
By AJ Simmons