The Fine Art Of Being A Kid

THE FINE ART OF BEING A KID


It started out innocently enough.

My partner, his daughter, and I went to visit some friends whose children were there for the weekend. We arrived with guitar in hand, since we usually played music whenever we got together.

The kids circled each other briefly, going through the rituals of bonding, and then scampered off, laughing and playing, while we adults drank a glass of wine and talked on the back porch, watching them.

The kids gradually drifted closer to us, obviously wanting to be included in what we were doing without giving up their own fun, so our friends daughter proposed a new game: Blindman’s Bluff.

Before he could blink, my partner was blindfolded and the kids scattered, giggling and calling out taunts. “You can’t get me!” “I’m over here!” were quickly intertwined with the clattering racket of plastic pots being thrown in order to misdirect him.

Soon he was turning in endless circles as they poked him with mops and brooms, bopped him on the head with balloons and watched him try to figure out which direction he was going in. By this point, the game itself had degenerated into a debacle of giggles, pokes and general hilarity. It no longer mattered whether anyone was caught or not. We were just having fun.

While the rest of the adults went into the house, my partner and I found ourselves being rolled into mattresses like plump sausages, playing tag, running around like crazy idiots, and engaging in the forgotten rituals of childhood bonding. The fact that we were not doing what was ‘expected’ of us never entered our heads because somehow, we had managed to gain entry into the magic circle and there was no turning back

And as, at last, I lay beside him under the stars surrounded by small, warm bodies who giggled and whispered, poking each other with unabashed glee, I realized how easy it is to remember the fine art of being a kid, if only we will let ourselves.

Yet how easily we forget.

We spend the majority of our childhood wishing we were grownup; yet when we finally become adults, we find ourselves drifting in endless daydreams of a childhood we long to regain. All the while, within us that child still sleeps, clutching lollies and balloons, a beatific smile creasing lips that have forgotten how to sing the silly songs that were once as much a part of us as balancing a checkbook has now become.

As parents, we clothe and feed our children, yet how many of us really know how to play with them anymore? When they talk, do we really listen or do we really only hear with the ears of adult expectation?

Do our children only see us as parents or do they also see us as playmates, confidantes, and friends?

The ages of the kids we played with that night were varied from as young as five all the way up to twelve; yet, in the arena of play there was not a single one of them who did not scamper, holler and laugh out loud. They all helped roll up my partner in that mattress and every single one of them, for a time, lay on those stairs and watched the stars with us. When the “Hairy Hand” came after them, they hid behind each other, jumping off low walls into the bushes, their giggles indistinguishable one from the other.

Age, it seems, is not an issue among children. Why, then, should it be an issue for us?

Parental caring, in all its forms, is as necessary to our children as breathing, but shouldn’t the rest be equally as important? Instead of pulling from our arms as they grow older, wouldn’t our children learn to trust us more in their formative years if we could just remember how to be like them?

That night my partner and I could have followed the patterns of adulthood, but instead, we chose to step out of ourselves and become a kid again. What we got out of the bargain far exceeded what we gave.

Unexpectedly, as I lay under the stars, a little tired but a lot happy, I finally felt the memories of my childhood collide with reality and in that moment, it was as though the boundaries between us no longer existed.

The truth is, every child needs to believe that they are on a journey where, in the end, they will still be who they are right here and now.

And if you put a box on your head, proclaiming yourself to be a rectangle alien from the planet Rhomba, it just might have the power to make the difference.