When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother
What will I be
Will I be pretty
Will I be rich
Here’s what she said to me

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

I saw the shirt and immediately, it flew into the shopping cart.  Future President it declared in sparkly gold letters.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for gold sparkle and feminism. Naturally, I want to believe my daughter will grow up to do important things. It’s so exciting, wondering what she’ll become, what great things she might accomplish. But I can’t help but wonder, whose definition of “great” am I pondering when I think about the great future that lies ahead of her.

When we think about the futures our kids might have, I think we tend to think of the really noble, exciting stuff.  Maybe they’ll be STEM leaders who code to change the way we live our lives.  Maybe they’ll be doctors without borders. Teachers. Marine veterinarians who heal wounded dolphins. General do-gooders and inventors, the brave pioneers.

But what about the less exciting futures that some of our kids will inevitably inhabit?  What if she doesn’t want to do something important like social work, or quirky like running a bookstore with a resident cat? What if instead she wants to be a receptionist at a paper supply company and she’s totally happy there? What if she wants to be a pilot and I spend every day worrying about her because of my own fears of flight?  What if the future I envision as boring or scary, in her eyes, perfectly fine?

Of course, it’s a futile and somewhat silly thought exercise.  Of course my child might not pick the future I lay out in my head for her.  Of course she can choose her own path. “You can try to be whatever you want to be,” I want to tell her. And that includes stuff that might not be exciting and STEM-focused.  Yes, those things are important and a big part of the future, and yes, I want my daughter to choose something society considers noble.  But, people can do noble, important things without the mantle of a job title that conveys that.  You can do good in your community as a citizen, not just as someone, for example, employed in official public service.  You can mend people without being a doctor without a border.

So while I snap Instagram shots of my daughter in her Future President t-shirt, the tiniest blank slate, a little girl who could do anything…I want to remember to push my daughter to go for the leadership roles, to go for the noble aspirations, more than anything, I want to nurture her sense of caring.  I want her to care about the communities she will be a part of throughout her life, to want to help others regardless of her official job title.  So while I eyeball games that teach coding skills and encourage her to try the things I think of as “great”, I want to make sure I’m also focusing on helping her cultivate compassion.  In an age of around-the-clock immersion in digital communication, it’s easy to forget we’re working with real people, living next-door to humans living real lives, we’re all part of intricate ecosystems in our communities, and no matter what we do from 9-5, we still have the ability to do great things.  No matter what her job, I want her to be one of the helpers in times of crisis, to bake the bread when people are hurting, to sign up when the blood bank is in need.  We might think compassion is an innate trait, but it’s something we cultivate with practice, a skill that always needs strengthening, a passion we can make more perfect with practice.

Our children may grow up to do great things.  They may do boring things, or scary things, or noble ones. But the act of knowing how to jump into compassionate action is, perhaps, the greatest one of all.

What will you be, little girl?

May you be, above all, greatly compassionate.

(President’s fine too though!)