The missing childhood

We grown ups are really odd. Really really odd. What children can do with absolute simplicity and ease we complicate with false pride and philosophies. At 27 , read The Little Prince all over again after 5 years and felt very sad. As sad as you feel when you have to leave school and start taking baby steps into the big bad world.

St. Exupery, hats off to you. You did for mankind no other author can do. Wrote a book for children which astonishes them, make a grown up feel more responsible. It’s a book which invokes different emotions at different stages of life. Why am I sad then? I should feel euphoric at re-discovering the genius. But no, I feel clouded because I cant feel like a child anymore. More so, children today don’t behave like children anymore. They are growing up too fast and the more they get the more they become detached from the sticky, gooey threads of life which used to make childhood so much more fun.

A kindle to read a book may be cool, but it does not give the high smelling the new pages of a book does, it does not give the thrill to read a book hiding from the teacher’s eyes in a serious maths class. And this cool kindle does not even stand a chance in front of an X-BOX or a PS( 1, 2..etc). Children nowadays are becoming adults too soon, scientifically because they see far too many serious adjustment issues played in front of their still innocent eyes. Busy parents, a curt baby sitter, lots of homework, scheduled extra-curricular and cartoon channels on TV make for a very busy and matured life which do not anymore make space for Noddy, Peanuts, Cindrella. The lucky few still know them. In a few years they will be history like our national animal.

But it’s not the child’s fault. The parents should the lives of children easier. Time heals. And giving your child time does not give the chance to wounds. The important things of life are invisible. They are intangible. Only to be felt by extra sensory perception and passed on.

A child should not be made lonely in this world. It should be reared like a flower. As precious as the little prince’s only flower. Or else they fade away.

So the seed only if you can water it well.