When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

The line is a paradoxical wish that reverses the usual trajectory of maturation: instead of aspiring to adult status, the speaker longs to recover the freedom, wonder, and unselfconsciousness associated with childhood. It can be read as a critique of adulthood’s compromises—careerism, anxiety, and social conformity—and as an expression of nostalgia for a time when identity felt less burdened by responsibility. In Heller’s typical satiric register, the joke carries an edge: “growing up” may mean losing what is most vital, so the only sane ambition is to preserve (or return to) the childlike capacity for play and sincerity.