Growing up in India, the question we were all asked was: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It was often delivered with a mix of curiosity, pride, and sometimes quiet pressure. The answers came in predictable shapes – doctor, engineer, IAS officer, businessperson – respectable, recognizable, reassuring. But I’ve come to realize, with time and reflection, that it’s the wrong question. Or at least an incomplete one.
Because when we ask a child what they want to be and only mean a job, we unknowingly teach them to equate identity with occupation. We start them early on a track where who you are is based on what you do. We begin to anchor their self-worth to external validation – titles, degrees, salaries, status. The soul, the values, the being of the child, quietly takes a backseat.
In our Indian tradition, ironically, this wasn’t how life was meant to be viewed. We’ve always had a language for the deeper self. From the concept of dharma – one’s duty, not in the professional sense but the ethical and moral – to the reverence we hold for character traits like humility (vinamrata), truthfulness (satya), and self-restraint (sanyam), we’ve long believed that the measure of a person is not what they achieve, but how they live. We don’t touch elders’ feet because they’ve earned a promotion. We do it because their lives reflect wisdom, restraint, and balance. Because they’ve become something greater than their profession: they’ve become whole.
What if, instead of asking our children about careers, we asked them about values? What if we helped them build a framework for decision-making rooted in who they want to become, not just what they want to do?
Every family, every community, every society has a set of values it claims to uphold. But few of us take the time to define what those values actually mean in practice – or how we benchmark against them. We say we value integrity, but do we celebrate it when it comes at a cost? We say we value kindness, but do we model it in traffic, at work, at home? The gap between our stated values and our lived ones is often the very thing that confuses young minds growing up under our guidance.
So perhaps the real opportunity is not just to talk about values – but to actively framework our lives around them. To choose them consciously. To ask ourselves and our children:
- What does success mean to us – not to society?
- What do we want our decisions to be guided by – convenience, or conviction?
- How do we evaluate a “good life” – by income, or by impact?
- When we face a dilemma, what values will help us choose?
This idea of value benchmarking isn’t about moral superiority. It’s about coherence. About knowing who you are, and using that knowledge as an internal compass. It’s about building lives that aren’t just impressive on the outside, but meaningful on the inside. And that’s what our children need most – not just a career path, but a sense of alignment between what they believe and how they live.
Imagine if we taught our children to say: “I want to be someone who lives with courage.” “I want to be someone who is generous even when no one is watching.” “I want to be someone who tells the truth, even when it’s hard.” “I want to be someone who lifts others up.”
Then no matter what they do, who they become will always matter more. A teacher or a trader, a farmer or a founder – it won’t matter. Because they’ll be guided by values, not titles.
In a world that is obsessed with growth, outcomes, and optics, raising children who are anchored in values is both a return to our roots and a radical act. We owe it to the next generation – not just to prepare them for the job market, but to prepare them for life.
Because in the end, we are not the sum of our achievements. We are the expression of our character. And the world doesn’t just need more professionals. It needs more people of wisdom, humility, generosity, and integrity.
That’s who I hope to become. And that’s what I hope we start asking our children too.