Identity & self

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

195 answers answered between 1930 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

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.

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Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 2 Arts and letters 164 Politics and public life 14 Business and finance 4 Technology 1 Sport 9
Read by age Any age Before thirty 3 In their thirties 33 In their forties 36 In their fifties 50 In their sixties 43 Seventy and beyond 25
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Mellody Hobson Co-chief executive and president of Ariel Investments
And all the while I was growing up, of course, there were just constant conversations about money and money being tight and how are we going to make ends meet and sometimes not having enough money. And it really just made me committed to living a life with much more financial security.
Recorded Farai Chideya, News & Notes, Leading Ladies series, NPR, 22 March 2007 source ↗
Angela Hartnett English chef
Anything and everything. I watched the Olympics and wanted to be an 800m runner. If I watched Inspector Morse, I wanted to be a pathologist.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 August 2022 source ↗
Gino D'Acampo Italian-British celebrity chef and media personality
I wanted to be a footballer at first, like any other Neapolitan kid.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 December 2022 source ↗

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