If young boys had their way, we'd all be firemen. Or cowboys. Or pilots. Or hockey players. At least those are some of the classic "boy" answers to that timeless question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

As men, we're taught from a young age that our careers define who we are. We're not asked what we want to do, but what we want to be. But if our jobs are inextricably tied to our identities, what happens when we lose them? With unemployment surging and no end to the recession in sight, many men are facing this new existential question.

We live in a society that still sees providing as a male responsiblity, even as women have joined the workforce.  Studies of stress in high school students have shown that while girls tend to worry about social status, boys are more concerned about their futures -- that is, what they're going to be when they grow up.

Here's the thing: as the New York Times noted recently, the vast majority of job losses over the past few months have afflicted men.  That's because men are heavily represented in fledgling industries such as manufacturing and construction, while women tend to be employed in so-called "recession proof" areas such as healthcare and teaching.

So, as men increasingly find themselves jobless at home, are traditional gender roles shifting? Are men helping out more with house work and childcare? The Times says no. Slate says maybe. But neither addresses the core of the problem -- that it may be time to re-think our conception of "men's work."

We typically assume that men can be whatever they want. After all, it was women who were shut out of the job market for the better part of the last century. It is women who continue to earn less for doing the same work as men. Meanwhile, it's men who fill the boardrooms of most Fortune 500 companies. But there's a difference between what men can do and what society tells us we're allowed to do.

This past weekend I attended an international conference on masculinity at Concordia University. The highlight for me -- a wee blogger in a sea of academics -- was a presentation on male teachers by two Indiana University researchers, Shaun Johnson and Sean Ripley. The duo agreed with the popular notion that society needs more male teachers, but argued that we had the reasons all wrong.

The mainstream argument for male teachers, Johnson and Ripley said, is that boys -- who are trailing girls academically these days -- need male role models to show them the light.  The problem with this argument is that it assumes men have something to offer male students simply because they are men. It follows that male teachers ought to be a certain kind of man, and that their mission is to foster a certain kind of boy. This notion of constructing an ideal or typical man is, as any Masc reader knows, both ridiculous and dangerous.

What's more, the "role model" argument has failed to draw men into the classroom. Ripley, who is an elementary school teacher, argued that our culture discourages men from pursuing a career in education. Teaching pays less than many other professions, offers little opportunity for upward mobility, carries a low social status, and has historically been promoted as women's work because of its "nurturing" aspects (a deliberate marketing strategy aimed at recruiting female teachers when men were at war).

Male teachers are depicted as martyrs who forsake so-called better opportunities in order to save the lost boys. Ripley said he's seen scores of men drop or burn out of the profession once the futility of this premise becomes apparent.

The goal, then, is not to put alpha males in the classroom to rescue boys from failure or feminization. It is to make education -- like nursing or childcare -- a safe and acceptable venue for (all sorts of) men. The issue is one of personal freedom, of self-determination or, as Johnson and Ripley put it, of "gender justice."

The silver lining to this recession is that it's a change accelerator. Our politics are changing. Our financial system is changing. And, with Dad on the job hunt and Mom at work, our gender roles are changing. These days, a teaching gig- - with its tenure and pension and summers off -- may seem pretty lucrative to an out-of-work investment banker or aspiring family man.

Soon, both girls and boys may be able to answer the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with, "Whatever I want."

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Dan Levy is a journalist and group facilitator living in Montreal

Photo by .zoe via flickr