A lot of things on Facebook annoy me. But one of my biggest pet peeves is when people say, “I want to be a kid again. This growing up and paying bills thing isn’t very fun.” For some reason it’s a very common complaint on Facebook.
This is one of those phrases, commonly uttered by young adults right around my age (mid-twenties) that I feel like people are not thinking all the way through. I get that paying bills and having to have responsibilities is not fun. But this is what you get for the major trade-offs of adulthood. And if your childhood was really that much better than your life now, then I do feel sorry for you, because that just sucks and it’s all downhill from here. But I think most people are just forgetting what it was like to be a child.
My childhood really wasn’t bad; my mom was loving, fed me, and bought me all the books I ever wanted. And kids can be a joy because they look at the world in a whole different way. But I just really prefer being an adult. Everything has positives and negatives (even ice cream – I know, shocking, but it’s true) so let’s review them.
Pros of Childhood
- No bills
- No job
- More imagination and creativity
- Lots of play time
- More open-mindedness
Cons of Childhood
- No control over one’s own life
- Only had money if given by guardians
- Only had food provided by guardians
- Homework
- Parental rules and punishments
- Inability to envision the big picture past the next 5 minutes
- Inability to choose the people you spend time with
- Inability to go anywhere an adult doesn’t take you
By all means, if you’d like to dream of going back to the days of, “Go to your room,” “No, you can’t go to your friend’s house tonight,” and “Because I said so,” go for it. Just weigh the pros and cons before saying that phrase again.
Don’t forget, you can be an adult and still be a kid at heart.
Sweet Wanderings 