Of all the questions we ask children, the most revealing is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
We anticipate the fanciful answers, the astronauts, the presidents, the doctors. But 10 years ago, when I posed this question to Rona, the six-year-old daughter of a local shop owner, her answer left me profoundly unsettled. “I want to be a maid, like Maya,” she declared.
I have never quite recovered from that statement—and sadly. Maya was not a real person; she was a beautiful young female character in a Filipino soap opera that aired on a Ugandan TV.
Her storyline, a common trope, revolved around being pursued by the wealthy son of the family she served as a maid. This narrative, playing out on screens across the nation, was Rona’s inspiration. In countless households, as mothers and domestic workers binge-watch these daily dramas, children are right beside them, absorbing every scene.
Their young, impressionable minds are like sponges, and the ideas they absorb at this formative stage imprint upon them, shaping their aspirations and worldview. We must pause and ask a critical question: is it safe to subject our children to such a relentless bombardment of content that glorifies limited roles?
Gender stereotypes about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) begin forming remarkably early in childhood. Research shows that these stereotypes emerge in early childhood and are associated with reduced STEM engagement among girls.
By the age of seven, children begin to internalize gender stereotypes, often avoiding activities or interests not traditionally associated with their gender. Even more concerning, longitudinal research indicates that students who do not express STEM-related aspirations by age 10 are unlikely to develop them by age 14, effectively limiting their pursuit of science subjects later in life.
The influence of parental roles on career aspirations is equally powerful. According to studies, parents, and especially mothers’, gender-typical career and family involvement is directly associated with children’s gender-typical views about future career and family involvement.
Similarly, research published in Psychological Science demonstrated that fathers’ participation in domestic work significantly impacted their daughters’ aspirations; when fathers contributed more to household labor, daughters were more likely to aspire to less gender- stereotypical occupations.
This question becomes even more urgent when contrasted with a parallel national reality. The Ugandan government is vigorously promoting science, technology, and innovation as the cornerstone of our socio-economic transformation.
This vision is enshrined in national blueprints like Vision 2040 and the forthcoming Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV). The commitment is tangible: increased budget allocations, the establishment of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Secretariat, the launch of an Open Science Policy, and a focus on compulsory science education and targeted scholarships.
The President himself has championed this cause, famously stating at Ntare School, “What we need now is how to maintain that road, not poetry.”
The message from the top is clear: we need engineers, scientists, and innovators to build our future. Yet, a stark disconnect persists. University enrolment in advanced science and engineering programs remains dishearteningly low.
While experts cite perceived difficulty and cost as factors, we are overlooking a powerful, silent culprit: the stories we tell our children. According to annual viewership reports, the most-watched television shows in Uganda are consistently news, politics, music, drama, and sports.
Not a single science program ever cracks the top ten. They do not even make the list. The global knowledge economy is rapidly expanding, with modern societies increasingly valuing innovation, research, and development.
Worldwide, the number of personnel involved in creating new knowledge has risen dramatically in the past three decades. This transformation represents both a sociological shift and a political agenda that Uganda cannot afford to ignore.
Consequently, the celebrities our children celebrate are musicians, actors, and social media influencers. The average child can name every contestant on a singing show but has never heard of Marie Curie, whose research on radioactivity revolutionized medicine, or Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the very World Wide Web they use to share TikToks. Crucially, there is a lack of local content highlighting brilliant, relatable Ugandan scientists overcoming adversity to transform society through technology.
These empowering narratives are rarely invested in. So, how can we expect a young girl like Rona to dream of becoming a materials scientist when all her idols are artists? By the time financial incentives and better teacher salaries attempt to steer her in school, the foundational imprint on her ambition may have already set.
The window for inspiring wonder is often closed before formal education even begins. This brings us to a fundamental debate about the role of media. Media scholars are often divided between the “Mirror Theory,” which posits that television simply reflects society’s existing values, and the “Influence Theory,” which argues that it actively shapes them.
I firmly side with the latter. Television is not a passive mirror; it is a powerful author, scripting desires and normalizing certain life paths while rendering others invisible. The solution must start at home. We must be intentional about our children’s media consumption.
This means actively limiting their exposure to mind-numbing soap operas and balancing it with curated, educational content that sparks curiosity about how the world works. It is no mere coincidence that the term “programming” applies to both television schedules and the act of mind control.
We must be vigilant; we must watch our children as they watch.
The author is an engineer, Technology Solutions.
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