Sunday 5 June 2011

Children and grown-ups

This week, on Jun 1st, we celebrated International Children's Day in Poland. Funny enough, I got wishes and little gifts from my parents (mind that I'm 30). This made me a think a bit of adulthood and childhood.

Very often I get to hear from the adults that they'd like to be children again. Teenagers claim themselves proudly not being children any more. There seems to be a lot of myths and longings regarding childhood and I cannot understand why.

My childhood was not that much careless and happy (mostly because of frequent injuries, I've always been living on the edge), but wasn't miserable either, because I had a chance to grow up in a lovely house with a big garden, having lots of pets, family folks and children around me. Did not like school, but did not agonize over it either. Absolutely ordinary child living ordinary life.

But why would I miss it, anyway? Getting up at 7 every day to make it to school at 8? Spending vast amount of time on learning needless stuff? Listening to others telling me what to do? Carrying all that heavy books? Hell no!

Sure, it was great to have 2 months off. But anyway, my parents could not send me anywhere to any longer than 2-3 weeks for some summer camp, and for the rest of time I was just playing in the backyard or bothering my relatives, which was even more boring than my usual routine. Now it's pretty much the same - I take 2 weeks off and take off! And my possibilities are plenty, I can go anywhere I want, book a hotel and flight by myself and - luckily - not to worry about the budget too much.

My parents indeed provided for me. But does that mean that my life was careless and free of responsibility? Not really. I had to help my mom with cleaning, shopping and cooking, on top of that had to go to school, to a lot of homework and taking some extra classes (music, English) after school. Also, I started doing part-time job at the age of 15. Looking at the bigger picture, I think that the proportion of work and pleasure in my life was pretty much the same as it is now, and this is definitely a good thing. If your childhood was any more careless or care-loaded, then sorry to break this to you, but the happy period you miss so much does not look very happy to me.

I do miss some activities I did as a kid, like trees climbing, cycling or skipping rope, but who says I cannot go back to it? Sure, I'm much heavier, have a huge, fat ass and am a bit of lazy when it comes to physical activities, but it's not something I cannot cope with, that is, if I really wanted to.

Maybe that's really the thing you're all longing for - when you were kids, you wanted to do more. You miss it? Just get yourself together and want it again. Yes, it's that simple.

Kid up!

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