Posted By Godelieve 
“I don’t want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I’ll be in the future. I want to be me and nothing but me. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it’s possible to be. I’m growing and I don’t know how to grow. I’m living but I haven’t started living yet..”
— David Almond
A few days ago I spent a few hours babysitting a little girl who is a family friend. Despite being fun it was surprisingly enlightening, we did everything that one would imagine to do with a little girl, we made brownies, went swimming and played hide and seek. However while hiding in the dark depths of their house I couldn't help but question the importance of our childhoods, the impact it has on us as we grow up and just how delicate we are with young children.
One of the problems is that Children of a certain age can't make their own decisions on a lot of things yet so they rely on their parents to do it for them, they look up to people and mirror them, it is as simple as that. People aren't born close minded, we as a society educate them to be, we tell them what is right and what is wrong before allowing them to form their own impression. This is why then Teenagers are labelled to be 'rebellious' because we start to understand and see things we didn't see before, and make connections, we begin to see what was hidden from as children and we begin to form our own opinions on them.

Looking back at all the things you used to watch, read and love as a little kid is also important, because these are the things that heavily influenced you and made you who you are today. For example, I as a child was avidly obsess with Roald Dahl, I imagine I read his autobiography at least 8 times but only recently did I learn that the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is based off of the Seven deadly sins. A lot of children are being exposed to certain ideas and concepts without even being able to understand so that later in life, there is the hope that we agree with them

It is still full of deception, for example, while babysitting this little girl, we let her win in all the games, while giving her the illusion that we were trying our hardest, just the same as you won the majority of the time, when you were little. This is because people don't want to hurt you as a child to avoid guilt, you take things very differently when you are younger and you aren't able to hide your feelings. One of the major downfalls of this is you only see good in people, however you can't understand what is actually going on. Despite all of this, a good childhood is a key to being able to express yourself and be happy when you are able to understand the world around you, because every tree needs strong roots to stand. 

As much as I could explain negative things that we are influenced by as children , I do believe that all of it is important and being a child is even more important. It is important to learn these lessons because they prepare you for what to come but I think one of the most important things is that you can remain a child forever, and as Madeleine L'Engle wonderfully phrases it :

'The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been' 

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.

Germaine Greer




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    Godelieve and Zeyno. Two students with a passion.

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