I'm a teacher. My mother was an elementary school teacher, and I never really thought I'd be a teacher myself, but then I discovered that teaching is probably my most natural role. What was throwing me off was the kids-part. I never wanted to be in charge of a group of children or teenagers. That's more parenting than teaching, and I'm not naturally maternal.
I've always, always, though, been the type to willingly and gladly teach someone anything I knew or knew how to do. That was part of the fun of knowing it. And I discovered, teaching a class for adults at church, that I loved facilitating discussions amongst adults. I also knew that English was darn near effortless for me in school, and I enjoyed it. So I went back and got my Master's degree, and have been teaching at the college level ever since.
It's pretty much my perfect day job (I'll always wish I could do something artistic for a living), because I love teaching and I love autonomy. The only thing that I dislike is that I'm seeing a disturbing trend of politicians and bureaucrats getting more and more involved, and creating lots of dumb accountability requirements that serve no other purpose than to take up teachers' valuable time. Also, it's becoming more and more like a business. Students are approaching higher education as a service, rather than a privilege, and they put themselves in the role of the disgruntled customer at times when they don't feel like being responsible and doing their work. State-funded schools are starting to look at it like a business, too. How many students are failing? We must not be providing them with a valuable service! Make the teacher do more paperwork to prove she's a good teacher! Absolve the student of their culpability! Is the student not coming to class? Harass them until they are--it's your fault they're not coming! Etc. Etc.