The question
As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
A radio journalist or on the till at Marks & Spencer.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 August 2025 source ↗
A ballerina. I remain rather disappointed that I became a rock star instead.
An astronaut. I still do.
I had dreams of becoming the first scouse pope. Unfortunately, the girls got to me first.
J-Lo, a foreign correspondent and, at uni, I assumed that someone would tap me on the shoulder and ask me to be in MI6, but it never happened.
Always sleep on any decision.
When I was 17 I didn’t visit my gran for six weeks as I was out partying. At the end of that summer she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I never saw the real her again. I would love to say sorry to her as I loved her so much.
Cold call market research at uni.
So many different types. When I first met my husband, electric and vital. When I first held my boys in my arms, an overwhelming flood of defiant protection and magic.
I am a perimenopausal woman, so about two minutes ago, at a dog being adopted on Insta.
Kind, loyal and (slightly) mad.
Edward Enninful, Esther Rantzen, Adam Clayton, Philippa Dunne, Erin Doherty, Anne Enright
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