‘Childhood’ used to be so materialistic to me. In the past, I thought of a time of Barbie dolls and pink dresses whenever the world ‘childhood’ was conjured; I was reminded of a light-weight ignorance that paved the way for summer nights in the park, long hours at the Rec Center pool, and countless nights of home-made Chinese food. ‘Childhood’ wasn’t a development inside myself – it was my physical maturation and the change of events around me. It is has not been until now that I truly understand what a childhood is, and that it is over.
When you’re a child, you don’t have a care for the world but yourself. The one thing on your mind is the next goody on the line – maybe it’s a promise of candy or perhaps it’s the question of what you want for Christmas. To me, being a child seemed incredibly materialistic; I never understood how adults could enjoy giving more than receiving, and I didn’t think there would ever be a time when I didn’t have a long Christmas list. I found happiness in receiving toys and gifts and other smaller things, such as a play date and a warm summer day. My worries constituted of myself, and only of myself. If I were to ever get in a fight with my friends, the ultimate consequence to me was how bad I felt afterwards. If I didn’t receive the same Christmas gifts as my peers, the consequence was my feelings of sadness. This touched almost every aspect of my childhood, and perhaps that’s why it was so magical – because the thing is, when we’re children, we don’t have anything to worry about.
We’re ignorant to what other people feel, and we don’t care about our financial situations and those of others. We don’t think about the tumultuous political climate and the dire threats of climate change. We’re not worrying over which college to get into, what career to choose, and how to achieve financial stability. Love is just a part of the movies, and it only constitutes of a crush. Everything that we worry about now was nothing but something we didn’t understand back then. As a result, I now understand childhood as ignorance. And that’s okay – we wouldn’t have known any better, and even if we did, I’m not sure we would have been better because of it.
However, as I enter my second semester of senior year, I have begun to notice sharp differences in my current life that were not present in my childhood. For one, I care – I care about almost everything. I care about the health of my family and my friends, and I care about the state of the world. I worry over the dire effects of climate change and international instability, and I distress over the irrational choices made by our current president. Just as significantly, I worry about my personal future – I wonder how I will combat the sexism and racism I will ultimately face in the future, and I ponder how I will handle the competitive nature of my future college and career. Most importantly, I worry about my mental health and my current happiness, as those are the cornerstones to existing in every other part of life.
And that is what I understand of crossing the threshold from childhood to adulthood – it is the turn to caring. It’s placing other interests above your own and not doing every single thing for your personal gain. It is enjoying giving more than receiving, because finally, making someone else happy makes you happy. It’s providing for other people and meeting your responsibilities; it’s setting goals for yourself and working hard enough that you know you are capable of achieving them. It’s about discipline and order, and it’s about self-reflection and self-betterment. Finally, as I’ve come into adulthood, I don’t feel so ignorant anymore.
And sometimes I miss that bliss from ignorance – I miss not caring, and I miss feeling free and indifferent about the things that usually bring me down. But I also could never return to that stage in my life knowing what I know now. I have so much more freedom and independence now, and my education and experiences have taught me how to handle the problems coming my way. With the help of my environment and my loving family, I have found a way to live and make decisions.
My childhood is something that I will always look back to fondly, but now it has finally come to an end. It’s a bittersweet feeling, knowing that I will never be able to return to that stage in my life, but in a way, this knowledge is freeing. My future is under my control, and my childhood was the springboard to shaping me into the person I am today. I am so thankful for all the opportunities I have at my disposal and the comfortable, stable environment I was born in. Now, I care.
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