A Motivation Trope, overlapping with forms of Dream Tropes and Wish-Fulfillment, and also a form of nostalgia. A childhood dream usually is the kind of fantasy that children often hold — like wanting to be a princess — but which most people eventually grow out of and do not normally get a chance to fulfill. Putting aside unrealistic dreams can be one reason why Growing Up Sucks, but it is a necessity that everyone faces. Children having such fantasies certainly is not this trope, but when adults — even young adults — either still hold on to such fantasies or somehow find themselves in situations in which they can finally act on them, it certainly is.
An adult character revisiting their childhood dreams in this way can range from being a Manchild to merely being Not So Above It All and still in touch with their inner child; generally, cherishing a childhood dream is not viewed negatively except from the most cynical point of view.
There is, however, the potential for very dark implications indeed, because some childhood dreams are not unrealistic, but the fact that they remained dreams means they were denied fulfillment in the past. If an adult is thrilled to finally celebrate their birthday with friends, it means they Never Had a Birthday Party. If they are delighted by something like dancing, it implies they were prevented from enjoying this simple pleasure as a kid, possibly by a tyrannical Fantasy-Forbidding Parent.
Compare and contrast Tragic Dream. While children may enjoy unrealistic fantasies — like being a Superhero or living in an Underwater Base — they are expected to eventually recognize that these things are only possible in fiction (and can still be enjoyable that way). When a character strives to realize such a dream because they have somehow failed to understand it is impossible, they are tragically deficient in wisdom or maturity.
Compare and contrast Still Believes in Santa, which focuses on beliefs commonly held by children, but which does not necessarily involve any specific actions on the part of the (former) child, or any specific changes to them. While a character who embodies this trope may be completely mature in all other ways, they still decide to let go of that maturity for a while to act out their childhood dream. See also Career Not Taken, where the person had the opportunity, but chose not to follow it for one reason or another.
This trope is only about an adult pursuing and fulfilling a childhood dream and not about any specific outcome, whether positive or negative.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- My Hero Academia:
- By the end of the first chapter, protagonist Izuku Midoriya has all but given up on his childhood dream of becoming a superhero after his idol, All Might, points out the folly in trying to be one as an Un-Sorcerer in a world where Everyone Is a Super. He's moved to tears when All Might comes to apologize and offers to give Midoriya his own Quirk to give him a chance to live out his dreams.
- In the spinoff, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Koichi Haimawari is a struggling college student and All Might fanboy who lost his chance to attend hero school after showing up late to his entrance exams due to helping a child who'd fallen into a river. But he meets Knuckleduster, a Quirkless vigilante who invites him to become a "real hero" even without a license or training. Despite his initial apprehension, Koichi joins Knuckleduster in his attempts to track down the distributor of a Psycho Serum known as "Trigger", becoming known as the vigilante, "the Crawler". And by the end of the story, he's recruited as a sidekick to American pro hero Captain Celebrity as "the Skycrawler", albeit with a boatload of issues attached like crippling debt and bad press.
- All For One is a villainous example. He's dreamed of being a Card-Carrying Villain like the Maou the Demon King of comic books and video games ever since he was a child. After developing his Power Parasite Quirk, the first thing he does is go on a rampage, stealing Quirks from others to consolidate power and manipulate others into serving him. His Psychopathic Manchild personality has remained completely intact more than a century after he began, ruining countless lives and performing acts of mass destruction for no reason other than For the Evulz.
- In Naruto, the titular character's dream as a child was to become Hokage, the leader of his village, so he could gain respect from his peers due to his status as a Jinchuriki. Over time as he grew older and matures. while his desire to be Hokage remains, his motivation for it changes from wanting the respect his title would give him, to wanting to be the protector of his home and everyone he holds dear. By the end of the series, he achieves his dream after saving the world twice and getting married to the love of his life with two children.
- Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
- Akira's driving goal is to live out his bucket list in the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse that freed him from his Soul-Crushing Desk Job. Among the things on his "100 Things to Do Before I Become a Zombie" is living out his childhood dream of being "Akiliger", a Toku-esque superhero back when he used to be a costumed Bully Hunter. He and Kencho sneak into a now abandoned aquarium to grab the bite-proof (but tacky-looking) shark suit to protect Akira from zombie bites while he goes to rescue any other survivors they find. While confused by his actions, the people that he does rush to save are immensely grateful for Akira's support, letting him cross another thing off his bucket list.
- Akira's enthusiasm is infectious and all of his companions soon write their own dreams into his bucket list. Kencho wants to be a comedian, Shizuka wants to be a doctor, and Beatrice wants to enjoy Japan as much as she can.
Films — Animation
- In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, linguist Milo Thatch has dreamed of finishing the quest for Atlantis that his grandfather started since he was young, but is still stuck in the boiler room of the Smithsonian, where he works as a janitor. It takes an old friend of his grandfather's funding an expedition for Milo to live out his dream.
- Downplayed in Monsters University. As a kid, Mike Wazowski is enamored with joining Monsters Inc. and becoming a Scarer. In the end, he gets hired to Monsters Inc. but as a Scare Assistant, lacking the ideal build to be scary but having better success as a coach instead. Nevertheless, he accepts it as the fulfillment of his dream, and the final closing Bookends the opening in his childhood of him stepping on the Scare Floor for the first time.
- In The Princess and the Frog, Charlotte is seen as a little girl wanting to be a prince and marry a princess. When she grows up, she still wants to do so.
Films — Live-Action
- In the German road movie 25 km/h, two middle-aged brothers decide to go on the road trip they had originally intended to go on after finishing school after the death of their father.
- Doc Brown pulling the train whistle in Back to the Future Part III:
Doc: I've wanted to do that my whole life!
- In the 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka's motivation for setting up his chocolate factory is portrayed to be the fulfillment of a childhood dream his dentist father had denied him.
- Charles Foster Kane's last words in Citizen Kane are one of the most famous examples of this trope, even though they are an inversion, as all he can do at that point is look back with regret at the childhood he never had and never will have instead of getting to actually live it.
- In National Treasure, Ben Gates wanted to be a treasure hunter from the time he was first introduced to the legend of the Knights Templar treasure in his A Minor Kidroduction. This is reflected in his adult education (American History, archaeology, cryptology, mechanical engineering, and scuba diving), and lampshaded by the FBI. While people around him question his idealism, and his father in particular disapproves of his choices, it does end up working out for him.
Sadusky: What in the world did this guy want to be when he grew up?
- SpaceCamp: Since Andie Bergstrom was a child, she dreamed of traveling into space. As an adult, she became an astronaut but she never was assigned to a shuttle space mission; instead, she became the instructor of a group of teenagers at the space camp. Her dream unexpectedly comes true when launch control is forced to launch the shuttle with Andie and the kids inside. Of course, she's not happy because they have little oxygen and no supplies when she has to keep everybody alive as they figure out a way of returning to Earth.
Live-Action TV
- In the Flashback Episode "Smoke & Mirrors" of Agent Carter, young Peggy Carter dreamed of adventure and saving people, but was discouraged by her mother's wanting her to be a lady. By the time she was 19, Peggy had become a code breaker engaged to a man in her office and given up her dreams. She even initially turns down the offer to join the SOE as a field agent because it wouldn't be proper for her, despite her older brother Michael's encouragement. It isn't until she gets news of Michael's death in the war that she decides to realize her dream and take the position that would lead her to become Agent Carter.
- In a somewhat dark example of this trope, at the end of the sixth season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Rascals", in which several members of the crew were turned into children by a transporter accident, the Bajoran Ro Laren wishes to stay a child for a bit longer so she can draw with crayons, a thing she could never do when she was a fugitive during her actual childhood.
Video Games
- Invoked and discussed by Father in the Institute ending of Fallout 4 when he gifts the Sole Survivor the child synth Shaun on his deathbed and tells his parent that accepting this artificial child version of himself as part of his parent's family achieves a boy's dreams. Also invoked in the DLC Nuka World for both the player and possibly Overboss Colter:
- You get to have an entire amusement park all to yourself (even if it is in ruins), especially when you eventually get to switch the rides back on. Psychopathic Manchild Colter being satisfied with having the entire park to himself is strongly implied to be a major reason why the more cynical raiders have turned on him.
- Invoked even more strongly in one of the parks, the Western-themed Dry Rock Gulch, where you can play along with the robots running the park and act out the childhood dream of being a "real" cowboy.
Web Comics
- During the "Snowsong" arc of Dominic Deegan, Dominic disguises Gregory to hide him from Snowsong for a while. Greg, realizing he effectively has a Secret Identity, decides to live out his dream of being a superhero, drawing upon his comics from when he was a kid. He gives it up at the end of the arc after seeing how much trouble acting it out brought and realizing that wasn't the person he wanted to be anymore.
Web Original
- Deconstructed in the touching Hungarian short Expectations [1]
, where a little girl draws her dreams on balloons. She wants to become a princess and meet a prince charming but has also more realistic expectations: to graduate, to travel, have a family and a lot of money. A wind symbolizing the events of life destroy all the balloons but one, which makes the girl, now a middle-aged woman, remember her childhood dreams and cry. She decides to try again, establishing new goals. She fulfills some.
Western Animation
- Deconstructed in the third season episode "The Limited" of Archer, in which Archer is very enthusiastic about the chance to get to fight on top of a speeding train, which has been a long-held dream of his. The reality of this fight ends up being a lot less fun than Archer had anticipated.
- In the 4th-season episode "Wishmaker" of Miraculous Ladybug, the titular villain's magic results in everyone becoming what they wanted to be when they were kids, ranging from normal careers to the pretty outlandish, such as becoming a crocodile.
- On The Simpsons, Homer has had a few "lifelong dreams" as the plot demands, which are often corrected by Marge and pointing out he already did that.
- In "Colonel Homer", Homer says Marge is getting in the way of his boyhood dream to be the manager of a beautiful singer. But Marge tells him his real boyhood dream was to eat the world's biggest hoagie, which he did the previous year at the county fair.
- In "Marge vs. the Monorail", Homer's "lifelong dream" is now to be the conductor of a monorail, but Marge says his real lifelong dream was to run on the field during a baseball game, which he did during an Isotopes game the previous year.
- In "$pringfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling", this time, Homer's "lifelong dream" is to be a blackjack dealer, but Marge says his real lifelong dream was to be a contestant on The Gong Show, which he did with Barney in 1977, and a flashback shows Homer and Barney in one giant pair of overalls, playing "Oh Susanna" on the harmonica.
Homer: We got more gongs than the breakdancing robot that caught on fire.
