your-dreams
Original: your-dreams on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: DADDY! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO BE WHEN I GROW UP?
Father: I can't tell you.
Panel 2:
Father: I can't tell you.
Panel 3:
Child: BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW?
Father: I imagine all sorts of things you could be, that should make me happy.
Child (small): OH. NOT AT ALL THEN.
Father: BUT I can't tell you.
Panel 4:
Father: I have to hide my dreams for you because my dreams are heavy and hard. And me, light. And I don't want to crush them like a clumsy giant.
Father: But it's tricky because I want to guard with you all the stuff I love.
Panel 5:
Father: And it's hard to know the difference between telling you what I dreamt and telling you what you should love.
Father: Because my real dream for you... the dream of which all the others are made... is that you be happy.
Panel 6:
Child: SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Father: HELICOPTER
Panel 7:
Child: I DON'T THINK...
Father: WAAAAMMAAH!!
Votey:
A distressed face cries out: WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!
Child: DADDY! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO BE WHEN I GROW UP?
Father: I can't tell you.
Panel 2:
Father: I can't tell you.
Panel 3:
Child: BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW?
Father: I imagine all sorts of things you could be, that should make me happy.
Child (small): OH. NOT AT ALL THEN.
Father: BUT I can't tell you.
Panel 4:
Father: I have to hide my dreams for you because my dreams are heavy and hard. And me, light. And I don't want to crush them like a clumsy giant.
Father: But it's tricky because I want to guard with you all the stuff I love.
Panel 5:
Father: And it's hard to know the difference between telling you what I dreamt and telling you what you should love.
Father: Because my real dream for you... the dream of which all the others are made... is that you be happy.
Panel 6:
Child: SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Father: HELICOPTER
Panel 7:
Child: I DON'T THINK...
Father: WAAAAMMAAH!!
Votey:
A distressed face cries out: WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!
Alt text
A seven-panel SMBC comic. A small child sits on a father's lap and asks, "Daddy! What do you want me to be when I grow up?" The father repeatedly says "I can't tell you." He explains in earnest, heartfelt monologue that he hides his dreams for the child because his dreams are heavy and he doesn't want to crush them "like a clumsy giant," and that his real dream, the one all others are made of, is simply that the child be happy. In the final panels the child turns the question around: "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" The father, abandoning all the tender philosophy, simply yells "HELICOPTER!" The child begins to protest, "I don't think..." and the father drowns them out with "WAAAAMMAAH!!" mimicking helicopter/tantrum noises. Votey: a roughly drawn, anguished face wails, "WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.