When I was little I had the makings of an elevator pitch ready, long before I even knew what an elevator pitch was: “Hi, my name is Charlene Buchanan, I am eight years old, and I want to be a teacher when I grow up.” But I wasn’t special. Every child I knew had their own when-I-grow-up speech ready to go in the very likely event that an adult – any adult – would ask.

This, I suggest, is a great thing as it allows children and their guardians to give thought to the future and encourages children to see themselves as beings of reason capable of making decisions and one day making a life for themselves. But there are a few drawbacks. Though I’d never experienced it myself, I witnessed time and time again children’s ten-second pitches being shut down. But why would I have experienced that? I did, after all, spend the majority of my formative years wanting to be an educator or a lawyer – both perfectly ‘respectable’ and fitting for a little, chatty, know-it-all such as myself. My when-I-grow-up speech was met with smiles, head pats and the general approval of all the adults, while on the other hand, my more daring brother and more creative schoolmates had to go back to the drawing board.

It’s obviously one thing to dress like a police officer or soldier when you’re four or five years old for Career Day, but it’s another thing to say that’s what you want to be when you’re all of ten years old. Duh. Come back and tell the grown-ups what you want to be when you’ve decided you want to be a scientist, a doctor or a manager, sweetie. And don’t you dare embarrass your teacher, your parents and your school by claiming you want to be some insignificant little thing like a mechanic on Junior Schools’ Challenge Quiz, either.

No duh. The fact is, respectability politics and classism are passed on to young children in a heartbeat. Every time a parent gently (or not so gently) suggests that their child or any child pick a ‘better’ job or profession, the idea takes root in a young person’s mind that all jobs aren’t equal and all the people that do those jobs aren’t equal either. Though it perhaps comes from a place of affection for the child and wanting the best for him or her, boxing children into certain job ideals does more harm than good, and actually serves to highlight defects in one’s character rooted in classist notions about what makes a person important.

For one, it puts the rat race for more money and the appearance of success and wealth at the fore of picking a profession, and it minimizes a child’s say in his/her own future, and their ability to make decisions for themselves based on their own intuition and self-awareness. Not to mention the fact that it creates little job snobs, and is often based on woefully inaccurate, non-scientific data anyway.

In today’s Jamaica, parents and children of like minds may think that job success is commuting to a 9-5 desk job that requires clicking away on a computer and wearing stockings or long-sleeved shirts and ties in an office with the air conditioning on blast, but more and more TEENS and young adults are voicing dissatisfaction with that kind of life. It seems clear that this way of thinking is obsolete and does not serve us well, not on a national level nor on a level that considers the global job market.

Almost daily new opportunities present themselves that seek to challenge human creativity, and these challenges will not be met and overcome by cookie-cutter thinking that loftily seeks to look down on anything non-traditional or anything that doesn’t make the doer of the job the toast of the town or village king.

But enough about the problem. Here’s how we can fix it.

Part of overcoming a can’t do attitude to jobs, changing our idea nationally of job success and what it looks like, and not being classist job snobs, is recognizing the problem in the first place. We simply cannot cure what we refuse to believe exists or is a problem.

We must, secondly, ask ourselves why success and importance only look like certain things and challenge ourselves to interpret success more broadly than wealth, fame and the adoration of the community. Why can’t success be happiness, and a settled peace in playing a part in a much bigger picture?

Then, we must begin to separate what persons do for a living from their value as human beings. We must also encourage persons of all ages, stages of education and skill levels to assess their passions and interests, assess the existing job market wisely, find a niche and monetize their passions insofar as possible. Career Day or Career Week celebrations in schools must begin to shift focus from merely being dress-up days and instead challenge students to conduct research about their fields of interest while connecting them with professionals who can assist them in determining whether a particular path may be for them.

Lastly, we must all become advocates for liveable wages for every worker. Without doing this, our other actions will largely be in vain as persons will continue to flock to certain jobs or professions while shunning others and peering down their noses at those that do those jobs. Every person that works must be able to afford decent housing, food and clothing, and be able to meet their reasonable needs. When job security, and certain resources don’t almost exclusively exist outside of some jobs or professions, job snobbery will begin to be a thing of the past.

–Charlene Buchanan