I liked this set, but I did not love it. I thought there would be more careers presented, but you get two cards for each career so its HALF what I was expecting for the price. First of all, I liked that the vast majority of jobs are shown both for males and females (which is an essential improvement to showing only male doctors and female nurses). The only jobs not shown as both male and female were ones like astronaut or race car driver or clown in which the person was so covered up that it could represent either gender just fine. However, by showing both male and female examples on separate cards, it does halve the number of careers presented. The manufacturer should therefore increase the careers offered either by increasing the total number of cards, by putting both the male and female examples on the same card, or keep the name number by combining all those separate sports names into a card for athletes thus freeing up space. Second, I liked that the cards showed some diversity. The images looked just like the people we actually know doing these jobs. My mom just saw an African American female eye doctor for example and the local bakers are Latino. So we appreciated that the diversity we see in real life was presented here, but I still think it could go a step further. Where are the Southern Asian pharmacists for example? We have a lot of them in our area. Third, some images are not very clear as to the person's job and/or are outdated. For example: a man standing at a computer is a bank teller does not show anything in the image that makes you think bank not even money. Plus, he is not standing behind bulletproof glass which does not match any bank I know. So basically the image looks like it is from the 1980s to early 1990s. Fourth, there are no religious figures like priest, pastor, etc. An extra blank card is provided as a distractor, but if your family is religious, you could attach a photo to the blank card to represent a job within your faith. Fifth, there are no descriptions of what that person does in their job so you learn the names for a job that is not clear. You cannot learn to distinguish jobs unless you know WHAT they do etc. I really think these cards should have come with short job or career descriptions. Some side things I would change. I would call the store clerks as cashiers instead, but this was not written on the back of the card. The back of the waiter cards should have a slash waitress.... and the baseball card a slash softball. Careers this box does not include, BUT I wish it did and should be updated to include in my opinion are: homemakers, childcare workers/babysitters, secretary/personal assistant, pharmacists, politicians, sanitation workers (like garbage pick up and recycling), social workers (since so many kids are in the system), computer programmers, park rangers, inventors, manufacturers, actors, fashion designer/seamstress, accountant, home decorator, painter (like in construction), carpenter/woodworking, counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist, writer/author, stock clerks (use fork lifts in warehouses), etc. I would also like managers but that will be a hard thing to show in a photo. Personally, I feel that if you add more variety to the careers, then you can hand pick what your particular individuals need to learn. If they are in and out of courts and foster care obviously you would pick a certain set of cards to help them manage those experiences... if they live with a scientist mom and a computer programmer dad then you would pick another set of cards for those experiences. Given that we watch zero sports for example, this box has a lot of cards we won't ever use. Overall, it is good for kids to see all kinds of people doing all kinds of jobs. I loved that it included both male and female images for nearly every career, but I felt the variety was limited and there were no descriptions of what people did in those jobs.
