What was your favourite activity as a kid?
I was thinking about this today and I can't really remember having a favourite thing to do. I enjoyed playing sports, but I don't think that was ever on my mind as a focus point. I didn't play an instrument, but I did draw and read a lot. Yet, favourite doesn't come to mind.
You?
It is kind of interesting to consider since "childhood" has such a profound effect on the rest of our lives, but most of it isn't really that significant in terms of memory. Yes, I remember a lot of things, but how important should they be to my current condition?
Therapists seem to always focus on childhood as the source of all the future ills and while I might agree in some respects, I also think it might be because we have put too much attention on childhood itself. Especially now where childhood seems to be extending into the thirties and beyond.
I ran into a neighbour while walking the dog and she was saying how her sixteen year old son is being a little asshole at the moment, but there is little she can do about it. And I was saying how it wasn't that long ago that he would already be working at the start of a career and perhaps even considering a future family. Maybe those "asshole years" that some kids have is a natural evolutionary feature to say, time to go out into the world on your own.
But it hasn't been that way for a while and now we have low-maturity adults who have been sheltered from a lot of the challenges in life, supported by family and teachers so they don't have to learn and build their own strategies to cope in the world. And lo and behold, once in the world with low experience and low strategy, they suffer.
Maybe it is a good thing (maybe not) I don't remember a lot of the great parts about being a kid, because perhaps there weren't that many. But perhaps if childhood was filled with rainbows and unicorns, I would be one of those overly sensitive people with no strategy to deal with hardship, which might make experience worse. Maybe it is not. Perhaps it would be better to be naïve to the realities of the world and head into it as if I am entitled to travel unharmed. I expect that I can do as I please. go where I please, how I please, and will meet no resistance along the way.
It isn't reality.
No, but perhaps it makes everything more of a surprise, rather than being able to predict what is going to happen, and mitigate the risks. It would be like living life as a child, carefree and innocent, due to a complete lack of regard for the realities and probabilities of experience. It might be why people seem to believe they can "beat the odds" on pretty much everything, and why so many people put themselves into situations that are obviously dangerous. They expect to be okay, because they do not consider the alternative at all.
Life of a child?
I can't remember that kind of attitude as a child, but I think that due to circumstances, I was forced to mature a bit faster than many, and that continued on through teen years and beyond. I don't think I ever got to live the life of a child in the same way as the majority of my peers, so it was natural that I ended up different. Not better mind you, perhaps significantly worse, but different nonetheless.
When my daughter was a baby and even as an older toddler, she had "bath toys" of some kind, like a rubber ducky. But, I don't remember having any of that kind of stuff and I think that bath time was a practical thing that had to be done. It wasn't play time, and whether I liked it or not, I would be having a bath. There was no negotiation. And it wasn't too long after that I was taking care of myself anyway, so it was my responsibility to be clean, otherwise I wouldn't be.
Not a great experience, but more true to reality?
The problem I have with reality today is, it sucks. I totally understand why so many people find ways to avoid seeing it, dealing with it, feeling it, because it is largely ugly, complicated and painful. It is far easier to live in the fantasy world of a pretend reality, where we can believe that we are the masters of our own destiny and we will be able to overcome all the negatives, because we are strong, independent and capable.
When it all comes crashing down?
At least they didn't see it coming.
Taraz
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