Adult Giants.

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retepsnikrep
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:39 am

Adult Giants.

Post by retepsnikrep »

The perception by children of adults is very interesting to me because, as an adult now, I don’t now seem to have any of those attributes that I bestowed on them when I was a small child. Oddly enough I never expected to be an adult. I didn’t necessarily expect to die, I just couldn’t see myself as one of them, but here I am.

So far as I can remember when I was a child I didn’t feel little. I believe children don’t feel so until the retrospective realisation, when they revisit scenes of the past and find distances shortened. If it was a hundred paces for a child to the shop and only fifty for a grown up, then it must have seemed twice as far. But it was as far as it was to the shop or anywhere else, that was all that registers as a child.

Adults to me didn’t come in many different shapes and sizes, just young or old and men or women. Young stopped at about seventeen, after that age I classified everyone as old. Then there were women or men, the former mysterious, sad and insular. The latter powerful, alien, further removed from my small species than even the women were. Men were not to be disturbed because they were ‘working’ Women were not to be disturbed because they were also ‘working’ or too sad. I didn’t want to disturb any of them anyway.

Some people remember from a very early age, the womb even. I can’t. I can’t remember not being able to ride a bike, or look over the kitchen table, though I do remember things on my level, low down. The blue bricks in the yard, Granny’s black fire grate, and I could sit on a kerb without my knees in my eyes.

What communion did we have with playmates then? Not much. We played with them but did not have any niceties of conversation. We never said hello, or goodbye, it was just there they were, and there we were. The big topic was what were we going to mutually agree to do. This took ages, there wasn’t much to do anyway. It really meant in what direction were we going to wander and in what vicinity would we mooch. There was absolutely no way of keeping time, we were just as likely to come home for tea, ten minutes after dinner, or when it got dark and they were out searching.

The main feeling of childhood was not warmth and security but fear. Not any sort of deep dread but just a misgiving that I was probably, late, early, wet, dirty, or in some other way unsatisfactory, same as now really.

Peter :(

K.Snyder
Posts: 10253
Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:05 pm

Adult Giants.

Post by K.Snyder »

Didn't you play sports at all ret?...

Looking back on my childhood everything and anything I can remember mostly transcends into sports...I can even remember being on the news at the age of about nine when I made a 40 yard TD run...I remember that run very vaguely actually...

as far as my perception of what adults were, it was mainly just the simple fact of them being aloud to drink and smoke, and I wasn't...:wah: aside from that, I didn't really think about it, I was having too much fun being a kid...

But now that you bring it up, most of my observations are centered around adults that I find to be relatively unstable as far as rationality, and simple integrity are concerned, I find that most of the time such an outcome is more or less derived from that of ones life as a child...which to me explains the effect of coincidence in some cases, and choice in others(and for the sake of all of these kids going into schools with guns, from my own opinion, both! as much as it is unacceptable)
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chonsigirl
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Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:28 am

Adult Giants.

Post by chonsigirl »

Oh, I remember my childhood vivdly thorugh many memories. I remember first riding my bike, my first pair of skates-yes, the kind with the key! I remember sneaking into the boys treehouse, jumping rope and playing jacks.

Children are more accepting than adults of anything out of the ordinary. After all, a majority of their playtime is spent in make believe. That makes them more willing to have everyone just join in the fun. About the only classification you would fall under was the proverbial boy and girl, you had to one or the other!

If you've forgotten your childhood, I suggest you go help out at a school. Live again through the eyes of the youngsters you are with, and learn again to be on their level as much as you can with an adult role. That is why I am a teacher today. Children and the most accepting and loving portion of the human species here on Planet Earth.
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