Remember when we were little kids and we all wanted to be superheroes and ballerinas? Here’s why those plans never completely panned out.

Firefighters and policemen were the coolest dudes ever. They were the modern, everyday heroes that saved people and everyone loved. They caught thieves, sprayed burning buildings with enormous water hoses and drove through red lights with sirens blasting.

Then it turned out these jobs are actually really dangerous. And while they may be exciting at times, a lot of the time these occupations are actually kind of boring.

Astronauts? More like astro-NOTS. NASA is being privatized and won’t be making any more launches.

A lot of little kids dreamed of being astronauts, flying in space shuttles up to the moon or even Mars and being celebrities whenever they came back to Earth. Now those dreams are shattered. Thanks a lot Obama.

Many little boys dream of the presidency, and lots of ambitious young girls expect to be the first female president of the United States.

Most of them will get older though and realize that being president is actually really hard and no one is ever pleased with your work. You have to wait about 200 years before the country looks back at your time favorably, but you’ll be dead by then.

Possibly the most common dream jobs were concerned with athletics. Girls wanted to be ballerinas and boys wanted to be quarterbacks for the Super Bowl winning team.

The problem lies in the child’s prolonged athletic ability, or lack thereof. Flexibility, energy and endurance are usually high in children but deplete as the child gets older. By high school the athletes are running track and playing basketball and everyone else finds their own, un-athletic niche. Then a small, small percentage of athletes and dancers to go on to live their dreams as ballet performers and World Series winners while the wannabe athletes play intramural soccer and the girls who aspired to be a ballerina turn to a different form of dancing. The small handful of athletes and dancers get old quickly and retire rich at the age of 32. While that may sound like an excellent life plan, the physical tolls may turn out to be too much to bear.

One last dream occupation is a ninja, and we can’t find anything wrong with that. We’d totally be ninjas if we knew the right people to get us in. It’s a very exclusive job opportunity.