When I was a child, I remember one of the hardest things for me was learning all of the rules of growing up. How I saw things was easy. They were black or white, good or bad, and right or wrong. Grownups on the other hand always seemed to judge everything in subtle shades and varying degrees of mostly weird.
How I learned best was by listening to and minding my parents, yes, but I also learned by testing the very rules they imposed and suffering the consequences. I spent a lot of time thinking about rules while sitting in the ‘naughty chair’ ...
From a child's vantage point, grownups had it easy. They could stay up as late as they wanted. They didn't have to walk to school every day and sit in a stuffy classroom. They had all the money, so they could buy anything they wanted. But the best part? They didn’t have any rules!
They could do everything they wanted to do and, most importantly, they held the key to everything in a kid's life, too:
what we should eat and when;
what we should wear;
where we could go;
when to come inside;
when to take a bath;
when to go to bed;
when we should get up;
when to pick up toys or clean our room;
even what we could watch on TV.
Growing up couldn't come fast enough! I could hardly wait not to have any more rules.
Rules
by CJ Heck
Parents sure set lots of rules,
things to do and not do.
I’ll be glad when I get big
and growing up is gone through.
I won’t need a dentist
or a barber for my hair,
and I’ll go buy a chocolate cake
that I won’t have to share.
Maybe, I’ll stay up all night,
eat junk and watch TV.
If I want, I’ll sleep all day.
No more rules for me!
“How will you get up for work?
You might get fired”, Mom said.
“You won’t earn any money
by sleeping late in bed.”
Why would I need money?
Who needs money anyway?
Rules are bad. When I grow up
I’ll do fun things all day.
"How will you pay your rent?
How will you buy a car?
How will you buy your grownup clothes?
You’ll be bigger than you are.
You’ll have to buy the food you eat.
You’ll have to have a phone.
How will you pay your heating bill,
‘cause surely you’ll own a home?"
I hadn’t thought of all of that.
I sure can’t do that stuff.
It doesn’t sound like fun at all
maybe I don’t know enough.
Mom said as I get bigger,
the rules get bigger, too,
but when we start at my age,
growing up is fun to do.
She said, "People grow like houses,
step by step, and brick by brick.
That’s the way we all grow up
and having rules is part of it."
How I long for those days of innocence and the gentle rules of childhood ...