So many people remember childhood as a perfectly carefree time of life. So far, I've re-experienced about the first 3 years of it, and I'd have to disagree. Granted when we're kids we don't have to worry about paying the bills, having a job, balancing family and personal lives, or a myriad of other things, but kids really do have a lot of stuff to handle. It may be different, and looking back from where we are now as adults, it may seem easier, but from a child's perspective, it is just as hard. And even though parents are there the whole way to protect and offer comfort, kids are still alone in a sense. They have to be independent as they figure things out for themselves, as they figure out the right questions to ask. Just like adults.
For Will, mastering potty-training (and doing awesome now), learning how to handle his little sister and the corresponding loss of some parental attention, and getting a grasp on how the entire world works is his job- and the kid makes it look easy most of the time. There are other times when he gets frustrated to the point he looks ready to cry, struggling to make sense of something that he doesn't have the experience or vocabulary to explain yet. For Emily, watching her trying to make sense of this crazy place she's found herself, just in the most basic sense of food and elemental needs.
And they both handle it amazingly well. I'm not always sure I could handle the craziness as well as they do. Once you develop these skills during childhood, and once the newness of life fades somewhat, it's a little scary to think about being subjected to it all again- to be bombarded with questions you don't know the answer to yet, to be surrounded by change. We forget that as we get older, and maybe that's why childhood seems like an elysian time. It's not that we suddenly have pressures falling on us as we enter adulthood- it's that we become complacent, forgetting how to manage it all.
Posted by Jenn at December 2, 2005 07:29 AM