I'm not sure, but I think I could write a whole book about being a child, what that kind of life really looks like, and how staying a child can help us to grow up. It keeps coming back to mind as I go about. Especially now that I am a mother. I look at my kids and see into their eyes. While their experiences number no where near to mine, I admire the wonder in their moments. I long for the peace and contentment, simplicity and joy. It's a world I long to live in again, childhood. I wonder, can I go back? And it's not that I want to actually physically be there again, I just want the wonder. I want the simplicity. And no, children are not innocent of evil, but I want the naivity that keeps them pure at heart. I want to be a child and stay a child all of my days. And I know God wants this for me because He says so in His written Word.
When you're young, you're in a hurry to grow up. If I had a quarter for every time I heard Sadie, my two year-old say, "No, I want to do it ALL BY MYSELF!" It's great. She's learning her independence. What a stage to be at. Each day finding something NEW you can do. How exciting! Can I go back there? Adults who have forgotten how it was to be young hardly ever learn new things every day. But I think it's part of what makes a kid's life so adventurous. Then we get older and stay in denial and think, "When did I get so old?" We find ourselves relaying to people, "It was just yesterday when..." We reminisce the "good 'ol days" and dreamily retell a memory and say "Ah, those were the days." What if we could feel that way about our lives in whatever stage we find ourselves in? I believe the older "grown-ups" who are happy with their lives and what they're doing can reminisce, while still love the stage they're in, only if they've discovered the art of being a "child at heart."
Sure there are some negative connotations to never growing up. No one purposely strives to be in Peter Pan's predicament. But, if we could truly grasp what it means to be a kid in the healthy sense, I'd think we'd have to make some major changes in our thinking and in our lives.
We'd have to remember to have fun, first of all. Many adults have no problem with this part of childhood. Some even go to the extreme and shun all kinds of work and responsibility. They're probably the ones who didn't "get it all out" in childhood, or are unhappy with how things are turning out for them. They're the ones whom we speak about when we say, "I wish they'd grow up." They're the ones who have a hard time with responsibility. Yet the majority of us responsible ones still find ourselves looking forward to the next "event." When's the game on? A party?--Let me check my calendar. Is Friday here yet? Shoot, it's Monday again. I need a vacation. Forget girls just want to have fun; people just want to have fun! Is there a single person on Earth that doesn't want to have? Sure there are people who have forgotten how to have fun. I feel sorry for them. Funny thing is, you never have to remind a kid. We are just born fun-crazy. I'd venture to say that kids love fun so much they would marry it if they could! No one ever has to twist a kid's arm to go to Chuck E. Cheese. They live for that! And us parents get it too--we use this hopeless affair with fun to get kids to do work; make it fun! (Let's sing together now, "Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere!") It's sort of like the cheese on the broccoli. Rather than helping a kid develop a taste for things that are good for them, we disguise them so it will "help the medicine go down." It's because kids are "fun-addicts!" I think in many ways, it's just that what is fun to us simply changes when we get old. Then when we start having kids, reliving those childish things is fun again. The quarter rides at the supermarket, playgrounds, balloons, trick-or-treating, fairs, bubbles, throwing rocks, climbing trees, etc.
While having "fun" is part of being a kid, it's not even the part that I admire the most. Maybe I'll get to that next time. Have to go be responsible now.
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