Early morning, and it’s breakfast time. You sit down with your bowl of cornflakes and turn on the television, and it’s the news. What is the headline today, you ask yourself?

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have adopted yet another orphan. A pop group that went platinum with their last album have sensationally split just after their sell-out global tour. Sport, and David Beckham is considering yet another move.

It seems as though we’re obsessed by the world of celebrity, and you’d be correct in thinking that.

Ask any group of primary school children what they want to be when they grow up, and you’d find certain answers recurring. Singer. Actor. Footballer.

The biggest aspiration these children have is not that of health and happiness, but fame, and the wealth that comes with it.

And why shouldn’t our children be ambitious? After all, with something to aim for, they have a reason to study hard at school. But that’s the problem. If you’re going to live your life in the spotlight, why does it matter if you’ve got a GCSE in physics? Who’s going to notice the A Level in maths when you’re scoring 30 goals a season in the Premiership?

And the university degree you spent three years studying for fades into insignificance when you’re a global chart-topper.

To a child, talent is all that matters. If you can sing, act or kick a ball, you don’t need to worry about school, as you’ve got a ready-made career.

But that’s where the reality fades away. With every success story, there’s another 10 people who’ve tried to make it, but fallen flat on their feet.

Yet it all seems so easy. Shows such as Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor provide a quick, high-profile route into the entertainment business. Even if you don’t win, there’s bound to be a scout who spots the raw talent and snaps acts up.

If you’re lacking the talent but craving the fame, there’s always reality television. Shows such as Big Brother have launched people from obscurity into the public limelight virtually overnight. But even then, your 15 minutes of fame can quickly tick by.

Craig Phillips, Anthony Hutton, Rachel Rice. If you’re saying "who?" then you’re not alone. These people are all winners of previous series of Big Brother, proving that making your name in the outside world isn’t as easy as first thought.

Getting yourself on the television isn’t a one-way ticket to fame, fortune and all-night partying.

It’s time our children recognised this. The most talented and successful people aren’t those who took the easy ride by getting themselves onto a talent show.

It’s the people who work hardest to get to the top that stay there the longest. Rock group Oasis have been working their way up since 1991, when they were just another local Manchester band. They wrote their own songs that made them one of the most iconic groups of the 90s, and are still making records and winning awards today. They are proof success doesn’t happen overnight.

One reason people are falling quickly from B-list to Z-list status could be to do with the overcrowding in the celebrity market. Magazines can only print so many photos of celebrities rolling out of London nightclubs at 3am, and so will choose those most prominent in the current climate.

Attention will be on those that journalists can write most about. If your latest single has just charted highly, you’re in. If your latest movie has broken box office records, you’re in. If you came third in a reality show from two years ago, it’s you that will be cut. Pretty soon you’ll return to being the unknown person you were before.

Being a celebrity isn’t all glitz and glamour. It’s about keeping the press happy with enough gossip to write about you and keep you in the public eye, while maintaining a private life with your friends and family.

It takes intelligence to be able to balance the two. Not only will a lack of qualifications provide you with nothing to fall back on, but it will show when you have the paparazzi camping out on your parents’ front lawn, desperate for an interview or even just a snap of your mother putting the bins out in her slippers.

Who really wants to live their life under constant scrutiny and mockery?

Gone are the days when children aspired to be police officers or teachers, and there’s no point hoping they will ever return. Times change, and so do aspirations.

But we must make our fame-hungry youth aware about the harsh realities of stardom before it’s too late, and the celebrity culture claims a whole generation in its ever-growing pit of nobodies.

By Sophie Morton, age 17, from Welling