What do you want to be?

From what I've been told, the question of what a child wants to be "when (they) grow up" is a common one in most households. It wasn't that way in mine. In ATI, kids just aren't asked this in the way that most kids are outside of ATI. I may stumble explaining it but I'll give it a try. For one, the question never came from my parents. If my parents talked to us about our future, it was always laced with directed suggestions about the biblical role we were to fulfill. I'll give you an example:
Normal house: What do you want to be when you grow up?
ATI house/My house: Do you understand and accept God's commandment to be fruitful and multiply? Do you accept His plan for you as a wife and mother? What talents do you think God has given you to help you meet this commandment? Will it serve God?
Boys were given slightly more leeway because they could use their "talents" to provide for their family financially.

I have always loved reading and before I knew what a librarian was, I would "play" with my books. I would line up our books in alphabetical order and suggest titles to family and friends. Then, one day, we went to the library for some reason. This normally wasn't allowed because not all the books in the public library were "approved" and might contain inappropriate materials. This one day, though, we were there and I saw a librarian doing what I had been "playing" all my life. It was a lightbulb moment for me. This was what I wanted to do and it had a place in society. Not too long afterward, a nighttime conversation in the family turned to our goals in "serving" the Lord and I said I wanted to be a librarian. You really could've heard a pin drop. I may as well have said that I wanted to enter a prostitution ring. I was asked how that vocation would serve the Lord in "our purpose" to raise up a righteous army. At eleven, I couldn't think of a good answer, so my father told me that if I felt a calling to books, I should consider being a missionary because there I could give the Word of the Lord to those in need.

I'm hoping to be a librarian. If I can stick to this, then it might come to pass.

I posted this topic since I received an e-mail question about why I thought a certain QF family's son didn't go to law school. I don't know the answer to that. I only know that a child's future goals aren't as open, in ATI families, as they might be in a regular family. A child can express their desire but it will be held up to a different set of criteria. A "normal" parent might ask the child if the occupation would support their family or fit the child's personality. Would it be attainable given circumstances or talents? An ATI family asks if it takes too much time away from baby making. An ATI parent would ask if working for someone else is really following God's commandments. If the child is a female, the ATI parent would remind her that God made her for a purpose and to deny that purpose by having a conflicting career would put your eternal future in question. It's a different set of rules.