I know this is slightly irrelevant (?), but lately I’ve realized how many people consider childhood the happiest period in their lives. They argue that unlike adulthood, they didn’t have many responsibilities, didn’t worry about anything but occasional tests, and had their friends and family providing them with unconditional love.
Meanwhile I got screamed at for even just getting B’s in school, had no friends for years because of being bullied by nearly the whole class, had to deal with a judgmental mother with an unpredictable temper, and a father who was mostly absent because of work and turned out to be a cheater. I mean, back then I didn’t realize how awful my family situation truly was, as an innocent, naïve child, but now there is no longer anything I want more than the autonomy and freedom of being an adult.
It is sad to think that I’ve missed out on a childhood that nearly everyone else enjoyed, and I am left craving a state of being that most people consider more painful than being a child.
Reading your comment was like reading my own back story, so that type of childhood is more common than people think.
There’s a tendency to portray childhood with a more rosy tint than the reality, and when you had a crappy childhood, it makes that mythologized perfect childhood seem like something sorely missed.
Everyone is different and has a different story, but I agree that my adulthood is far nicer than my childhood ever was. I don’t feel like I missed anything by having a less than perfect experience as a child, and I am grateful for the life I’ve had since then that helps put it into perspective.
I know this is slightly irrelevant (?), but lately I’ve realized how many people consider childhood the happiest period in their lives. They argue that unlike adulthood, they didn’t have many responsibilities, didn’t worry about anything but occasional tests, and had their friends and family providing them with unconditional love. Meanwhile I got screamed at for even just getting B’s in school, had no friends for years because of being bullied by nearly the whole class, had to deal with a judgmental mother with an unpredictable temper, and a father who was mostly absent because of work and turned out to be a cheater. I mean, back then I didn’t realize how awful my family situation truly was, as an innocent, naïve child, but now there is no longer anything I want more than the autonomy and freedom of being an adult.
It is sad to think that I’ve missed out on a childhood that nearly everyone else enjoyed, and I am left craving a state of being that most people consider more painful than being a child.
And this is why the best years of my life was in college, where I got to be away from family.
Everyone’s on their own journeys in life I suppose. I truly hope you’re in a better place now, friend.
I mean, not everyone.
Reading your comment was like reading my own back story, so that type of childhood is more common than people think.
There’s a tendency to portray childhood with a more rosy tint than the reality, and when you had a crappy childhood, it makes that mythologized perfect childhood seem like something sorely missed.
Everyone is different and has a different story, but I agree that my adulthood is far nicer than my childhood ever was. I don’t feel like I missed anything by having a less than perfect experience as a child, and I am grateful for the life I’ve had since then that helps put it into perspective.