growing up

[navi]

Are these sentences correct:

1) His friends growing up are now all successful doctors.
2) His friends when growing up are now all successful doctors.
3) His friends when he was growing up are now all successful doctors.

If there is a difference in their meanings what is it?


Gratefully,
Navi

[Erik_Kowal]

Both 1) and 2) sound decidedly peculiar to me. They seem to imply that the friends might already have been doctors even while they were still children.

3) is passable, though I would rephrase it slightly to make it immediately apparent that they were his childhood friends. (Whether they are also friends now is not clear.)

His friends from when he was growing up are now all successful doctors.