What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

When I was 6, I would have rolled my eyes at you and said "Psh, easy. An opera singer veterinarian." and then pirouetted proudly in my tiny floral dress (my mother thought that as a 6 year old girl, my wardrobe should consist only of floral and pastel dresses, because God forbid her darling child should ever want to play in the mud with Hotwheels... which I did, frequently, ruining my little wardrobe of floral dresses)

I really did want to be an opera singer veterinarian when I was little, though. In my optimistic, naïve, little heart I didn't know that singers are dime-a-dozen and that being a veterinarian could involve watching puppies die. Wow, morbid, sorry!

But seriously.
'What do you want to be when you grow up?'
A question whose simplicity is staggering, yet wholly perplexing all at the same time. The paradoxical, multifaceted words form one simple sentences that can be deconstructed into so many new things that the root of the actual question is lost. Taken completely literally, word for word, the answer would be something like:
"I want to be alive, but as a 4'10 done-with-puberty female, my chances of growing--let alone growing in any upwards direction-- are very slim."

Harty har har. I have a job now, and once school starts again that's going to consume all of my time, but I'm only just realizing that I'm almost done with high school. It's only just starting to dawn on me that I'm thundering towards adulthood with absolutely no idea where I want to end up.

I know, I know, you few and foreign followers, ye elders especially, want to say "Darling, you're 16, kindly shut up and don't worry about it." however every other 16 year old I talked to today seems to have an exact layout for the rest of their life. I know that I could never try to plan my entire future, so I've been trying to think of what i want my career to be, and even that is difficult.

I feel like my 6 year old, floral dress-clad self, changing my ideal career with every movie I watch. Except now I know what sort of career my family expects me to live up to. Now, if y'all read my last post, you know that my parents really could care less what I do with my time right now. I neglected to mention that one of the only reasons I'm allowed to get away with the massive amounts of crazy stuff I do is because I've maintained pretty flawless grades my entire life, because the one and only thing my parents ever tear themselves away from their jobs for is to get on me about my education.

Here is a short summary of parents' academic careers, just so you know:
My father skipped a year of high school, graduated cum laude from Oberlin University, then proceed to build ion lasers for Notre Dame, Southern Florida, and Pitt (all universities) and was enjoying a career with a PhD in nuclear physics when he met my mother, who went to Harvard when she was 16 (seriously) and, after graduation, was commissioned by the Navy to go on a high-priority mission for about 3 months in Antarctica, and once returned decided to finish a PhD in astrophysics.

And yet, despite both of my parents having PhDs, and my father becoming a licensed audio engineer (because nukes just got boring, I'm completely serious) my family is still living just above the poverty line and neither of my parents appear to be all that happy.

I'm just sort of wondering, what is the point of all that schooling and excelling and pressure if you're not going to be rich and content with yourself? Will my career dump me back in some Hicktown with (heaven forbid) a family and a tiny house? Should I expect anything more?

Why do I have to know what I want to be when I grow up?
Julia