Babies. The other other white meat.
Yes, babies are cute.
But babies don't really do anything besides just be cute, so I'm here to talk about your childhood. Oooh! Does it give you that magical tingle and make you think about fiery dragons and flying cars and soup made out of acorns and grass?
For a lot of people, childhood was a great era. It was a time when they could be free of tedious responsibility, free to explore the still large and mysterious world, free to let your imagination take you to new and exciting places. Childhood is a time for growing, but also for not growing. It almost seems that the more you know about the world the less wonderful it is. Or, that ever since Santa became extinct Christmas lost much of its wonder.
When you think about it, kids can get away with a lot of stuff. They can act silly, they can pretend to be this or that, and does anyone judge them? Of course not. They’re just “being kids.” Is there an expression like that for adults, though? I ask you: if a glowering, sully-eyed adult with a business suit and a five o’clock shadow drags themselves home after a perturbing work day, is he just “being an adult”?
I happen to miss my childhood. I’m sure a lot of you do as well. A lot of days I remember not feeling embarrassed to pretend to be pioneer and gather wheat for the long winter ahead; or trudge through desert terrain armed with special tools for fighting the loose dinosaurs; or sneak through the forest with a compass to try and find the rogue spy in the hidden tree house.
I feel like kids these days (yes, I said “kids these days”) are growing up too fast. Especially with all the new media and technological advances. With iPhones and iPods and iThis and iThat, kids can get access to all sorts of content not suitable to their underdeveloped ears and brains. For instance, my friends and I were at a state park and wandering along a river bank singing “Just Around the River Bend” when we came upon a group of prepubescent boys playing rowdily in the sand. As we passed we kept singing, and one of them began shouting profanities at us: e.g. “Boobs!”
What has the world of youngsters come to?
But it’s not even THAT that annoys me so much about childhood. No, it’s the fact that after you’ve turned thirteen, you’re expected by almost everyone around you to be done with childhood. Enough playing pretend. Enough thinking about magical creatures. Stop being creative. Do your homework. Get a boyfriend. Buy clothes that hug you way too tightly. Poor brooding teenagers.
All my teenage years I mourned my childhood. I’d sit down in the living room by myself and watch our home videos, watch me as a baby push around a squishy soccer ball and slobber all over my pygmy hands. I spent hours reading children’s books, watching children’s movies . . . I was sad that I didn’t have a real reason to keep enjoying that kind of stuff.
Then, college happened. College? Wait—isn’t that where all the stuck-up brains go to write thesis papers and wear tweed jackets? Sometimes, yes. Luckily I ended up at a liberal arts college, meaning the students are as immature as they were in high school, and sometimes even less mature than that. At college I found people who love childhood as much as I do. The difference is, we haven’t lost it yet.
We play on the elementary school playground; we sing Disney songs along the river bank; we read all the latest YA fantasy novels; we set up secret trees around campus to hide notes to each other in; we dress up in costumes and have tea parties. But the one thing we have that a lot of adults lack is childlike enthusiasm for life and learning. If there’s something we’re interested in, we learn everything we can about it and get EXCITED.
Why can’t adults still hold on to that one aspect of childhood, that most important aspect? If you still saw the world from behind eyes that were always full of wonder or curiosity, wouldn’t everything seem magical again? Or at least somewhat tolerable?
You know, maybe I’m just thinking about all of this because I’m scared to graduate next year and start “real life.” But to me, life is never boring. It’s never monotonous. It’s never routine. Because there are so many new things to learn every day—so many new things to see. How could anyone be apathetic? How could anyone be so serious?
Oscar Wilde said something like, “Life is too important to ever talk seriously about it.” And he was right. Why do adults take life so seriously? And why are we rubbing that off on today’s youth? Why are sex and violence “cool”? (Although I must admit, I do enjoy a movie or book with sex and violence once in a while.)
Lastly, I must urge you to think about how you were different as a child. And if you feel your life is lacking something as an adult, why not try and see through the eyes you had when you were, say, seven?
Maybe I’ve just been reading too many Lewis Carroll biographies…
