And now I am. The general outlines of my dream came true. And then for several reasons, including the loneliness that can accompany hard-won independence, I became a Big Sister volunteer. I met Emily, a chubby, adorable Hispanic girl from the Bronx, when she was six years old. Now she is 13, and beautiful and sophisticated way beyond her years. I worry about her future, which is coming upon her much faster than I expected. The choice Emily gets to make will not be between "career woman" and "suburban housewife supported by a loving and affluent man." It will be: (1) have a job, or (2) live, like her mother and the other relatives who care for her, on a combination of disability insurance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and other government checks.

I urge her gently toward the job. I used to try to have serious talks about it, but she was too young and preoccupied to pay attention. So now I just talk. I try to work careers into everyday conversation, just as talk of poverty and dependence surrounds her home life. I feel like Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller, who finally realized that formal lessons in words were not something young Helen could sit still for, and not what she needed. Other children learned language because it flew around them all day long. That's also how most children learn about career options and grown-up ways of life.

I tell her about my family. No unattainable success stories; nobody's rich. But everybody's working, and struggling to make psychic as well as financial ends meet. My sister Rebecca moved to Boston and became a freelance tour director. It sounded glamorous to me, but things get slow in the winter. To pay the rent a few years ago, she took on Christmas seasonal work at Macy's, where she was assigned to the candy counter. A few months later she got a break. A luxury tour company sent her to China, leading a group of affluent tourists through the exotic land she had explored as a student. I couldn't wait to tell Emily. We found China together on the map. I explained that there were airplane rides involved, fancy hotels, interesting people, shopping; that Rebecca was in charge, that she could talk to the Chinese people in their own language, and that she got paid for all this. "Can you think of a more exciting way to make a living?" I asked. Yes, Emily said without hesitation, she could. I was puzzled, since she had never mentioned any careers on her own before.

"You can?" I said.

"Yes. Who was the one that does the candy?"

One Saturday, we went to the Metropolitan Museum and saw an exhibit of de Maupassant's drawings: caricatures of fat, smug male lawyers. Emily studied the labels. "Hillary Clinton is a lawyer!" she announced when she had figured out the subject matter. "Her husband is a lawyer, too," I said. She didn't care. Although Emily is deeply interested in Hillary, the First Lady's marriage is clearly not one of her strong points. Her mother tells me that Emily always says she wants to live like me, single, with an apartment of her own. I'm proud to share with Hillary the job of role model, and I'm secretly pleased that I outshine her on at least one criterion. On the other hand, I'm 36 now, and not as sure as I was 20 years ago that staying single is the key to all success and happiness. So I discuss that with Emily too. I asked her once if she had a boyfriend. "No," she said, "and I don't want one, because then you get babies and you have to clean all the time." (I hope she remembers that as the temptations grow.)
My job, I think, is not to convince Emily to live in any particular way, or to pursue any particular career; it is to give her perspective. If she can see that there is one way to live that is very different from the one she was born into, then maybe she can understand that there are many ways to live, and that the choice is hers.

SOFTWARE AND SUPERMODELS
In the first year of "Take a Girl to Work Day," I took Emily to the design firm where I worked. When one of my colleagues showed her how to use his software, she announced that she was going to be a computer graphics artist. The next year, she met some more people and decided on architecture. In 1996, she came to my new office, at The Academy of American Poets, and met a young man deeply interested in supermodels. So was she, and she began making career plans again. I considered worrying about this, but decided not to. At her age, I was in public school in rural Indiana, and I was going to be an actress, a director, a theologian, a poet, and, of course, President. So far, I haven't done all that. But I did get out of town, choose a college that could help me achieve my vague and myriad goals, and earn the money to pay for it. And I ended up, eventually, with a life somewhat more practical but still pretty good. Emily may also have to learn practicality along the way, but if the idea of supermodeling gives her direction for a while, it will serve its purpose.
I can't wait to see what she will decide on next. The more I can show her of the working world, the more she can think about how to make it work for her. And the more she can open my eyes along the way.

Heather Liston '83 lives in New York City, where she is the director of development at The Academy of American Poets.