Childred Are Good People

I was just reading through the news stories on Yahoo! and I was reminded that I don’t actually like the news. When I was a stay-at-home mom, Rick would come home to me crying on the sofa and he would gently reprimand me with “were you watching the news again?” Some time after becoming “an adult” I figured I would need to start watching the news. That ‘s what adults do, right? And I’ve never really felt like an adult, so I hoped reading the news might help. Graduating from high school, then college, then graduate school didn’t do it for me. Getting married and having children wasn’t the answer. Finally getting my driver’s license at the ripe old age of 23 was not the ticket. Having a car and a home and bills and a job hasn’t really done much for my feeling of adultness either. So, from time to time, I will read through the Yahoo! news in a futile attempt to feel more grown-up. But it just leaves me feeling frustrated, scared, confused and/or juvenile.



I can hear you all now (especially Luann)….. Being a grown up is not all it’s cracked up to be…. You might feel like you’ve never reached adulthood, too. Or maybe you got there and wasn’t so impressed with the scenery. I know. My desire to feel like an adult seems silly to me at times. After all, I like who I am—child or not—and I love my life. Why would I want to reach some pinnacle of maturity when I’m perfectly happy where I am? Who knows. Maybe it’s a “grass is greener” thing. Maybe it just goes to show how truly immature I am—I’m stuck in that adolescent phase of life when being an adult is a coveted experience. Who knows. And more importantly, really, who cares!?



It occurred to me today that one of my more youthful attributes is my sense of humor. People tell me all the time that I am a funny gal. And I agree. I crack my butt up! I love humor. Laughing is the best medicine (second only to chocolate, of course)! For the most part, I think people appreciate my humor. There are those times, though, that I feel particularly juvenile and not so appreciated … Like when I am the only one laughing. Those are the times, though, that I am really glad that I am not yet an “adult” in the completely-boring-no-sense-of-humor-all-business-no-pleasure sort of way. And those are also the times, inevitably, that any desire for maturity flies out the window and I just want to giggle with youthful enthusiasm and color with crayons.



Kids have great senses of humor. I was hanging out with Luke today. I was pretending to take a nap on the couch when he snuck into his room to get his little toy tool bench. He giggled as he scolded me to close my eyes and “go back to sleeping”. Then he’d start up the table saw and ‘startle’ me awake. He laughed and laughed. Then he made me lots of milk shakes with the drill and chicken nuggets with special sauce. The more grotesque the ingredients, the harder he laughed. The boy was actually holding his little tummy as he roiled with laughter about booger milk shakes and spider-gut dipping sauce. It was precious. Why I want to pull myself out of this world of wonder into the grown-up realm of meetings and stock portfolios and insurance rates is beyond me!



I think another thing that keeps me from being an “adult” is the fact that I see children as real people. I was blessed to be raised by a mom who sees children as real people. It’s refreshing, really. Children are neat little people. They look at the world with such wonder and enthusiasm and hope. My children tell me their dreams for the future and I can believe in them. I don’t like the one where Gabriel moves away to California, so I just imagine the state will be swallowed up by a ginormous, earth-eating mega monster before he escapes my grasp. (See, I can dream big, too!) But when he talks about being a movie director and a paleontologist (he was gonna be a librarian, an astronaut and a rock star when he was really little—isn’t that a great image?) I can see it happening. When Elijah creates these elaborate, completely unbelievable tales about his inhuman strength and athletic prowess, I eat it up. I can totally see Sarah rising to greatness as the first female ruler of the universe. And Luke. Luke is going to turn this world into a magical place. He has already started.



Of course, much of my adoration for these particular young people comes from my attachment to them as their mother. There is something strangely endearing about squeezing out a completely helpless creature who sucks the life out of you, constantly depends on you for it’s everything and follows you around relentlessly. But aside from my parental appreciation, my house is full of some fabulous people. And children in general are good folks. In fact, the older someone gets, the higher the chance of them becoming unlikeable! I’d have to conclude that growing up can be detrimental to one’s social skills, integrity, innocence, faith and humanness. Maybe we should start aging backward…