Long gone are those days that required cooking and shop class as standards in my mother’s high school years, replaced by the new generation, being forced to choose sooner and sooner what they want to be when they grow up. Last night, I sat at the kitchen table and listened to my thirteen-year-old sister rattle off all the classes she plans to take throughout the four years of her high school career and was astounded by the “High School Prep” she was supposed to have done and turned into her counselor by April. While this might not be her permanent plan for the next four years, the fact that she is forced to know what she wants to be when she grows up and what college she wants to go to at age thirteen is ridiculous.

Now, I am about to share something unheard of from someone coming to the end of their junior year: I have no idea what I want to do after high school. None. At. All. My counselors  probably just had a heart attack reading that, but it is true. We as kids are being forced from younger and younger ages to know what we plan to do 10 to even 20 years into the future at just age 13. I dread the day that I am babysitting a little kid, and rather than saying that they want to be a princess or a race car driver, I start hearing things like architect or accountant. Having to choose our “Career Pathways” will surpass middle school and go straight to elementary school, snuffing out dreams and creativity before they can be formed in little kids.

If we plan to start enforcing all of the new and “innovative” programs into our school, we should also start expecting the terms “premature balding” and “stress aneurysms” to come with it. Forcing children to decide what they want to do at such an early age forces children to stress about something that will not ever matter for at the least five more years. We are putting an unnecessary amount of pressure on today’s youth and robbing them of their chance to properly be kids.

Photo Caption: The following quote was taken from an app called Whisper, which lets people from everywhere share their confessions anonymously with the world. The app lets people register with their school to share secrets with their peers, and this is something an anonymous NFHS student has said, “You want to call me childish? Look around and realize that the word ‘child’ doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me.”