Have you ever noticed, to a child, everything is either black, or white? There is no middle, no gray area —it’s still a time of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny when things are either right or wrong, good or bad, funny or not funny, nice or not nice.
There is no middle area yet to further classify anything. I'm not even sure when the gray area develops, only that it does. It's the last true age of innocence when pretending is a profession, and bugs are only tiny friends.
Pretending seems to be an important step toward leaving the black and white only area for the gray area and growing up. To a child, a bad guy is a BAD guy. He does things that are wrong. Dad is a GOOD guy. He does things that are right. [btw, Mom is also a good guy]. Most children want to be the good guy, too.
Teasing, even lighthearted teasing, isn't funny to most children —-but just say the word 'underpants' and they’ll roll on the floor laughing. Then there are some things adults don’t find funny —maybe even punishable, that will bring giggles and guffaws from the guilty child hiding in his room:.
"Oh My God! Who exploded the marshmallow in the microwave?"
Nothing ever smells, or tastes 'okay' to a child. Gasoline and flowers smell good. Swiss cheese smells bad. Brussel sprouts and black jelly beans taste 'yucky', but chocolate cake? As my nephew, Brent, used to say, "I could make a whole meal outta that!"
Children also like easy answers. If they have no black or white answer, or a definitive name for something, no problem. They'll make one up.
My 4-year old grandson, Will James, was playing doctor with his Bob The
Builder rag doll. His toy medical kit and instruments were all neatly laid out on the coffee table in front of him. Poor Mr. Bob was on his lap.
I asked him, “Doctor Will, what’s wrong with Bob? How bad is it?”
“Grammy, Bob has a sickness in his herpodoffick. I’ll have to operate with this mixafidgit, but I’ll make Bob all better.”
Pretending seems to be one of the best things about childhood. All children pretend and I believe it’s an important step toward entering the gray area and growing up. By pretending, they are trying on their grown up world.
So, when does the gray area actually begin? What makes it happen?
Sometime along the road to getting older, life slowly expands beyond the black and white. Tastes change, life’s little mysteries get solved, and they find a lot of their questions can be answered online, or through their friends.
They find out their parents aren’t perfect, the teacher doesn't have all the answers, and a friend’s feelings will be hurt if they tell him his feet stink. As their view of the world expands, they shed their innocence, pretend less and less, and enter into the maturity of … The Gray Area.
They weren’t just pretending. They were busy trying on their world …
Published Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018
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