Growing up out of childhood is a bittersweet thing-along with losing the innocence and wonder (at the world) that the child feels , there is the joy at realizing one’s own identity. I have always liked this theme-one of my favorite stories about this is Marjory Rawling’s “THE YEARLING”. Also, neil Young’s folk-pop tune “I AM A CHILD”.
Anybody have some others? haven’t we all wished to become a child again? For me, its like Christmas-you just don’t experience it the same way as an adult!
A bitter Neil Young fit is “Sugar Mountain” about a place that kicked you out at a certain age. Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game” is about the same place, IIRC.
I have a bootleg of a live performance of it, so I have no idea of what album it is on.
My favorite song about growing up is “Child’s Song” by Tom Rush.
As for literature, there are so many that there is a word (“Bildungsroman”) for the genre. Will have think over what my fave is.
Ooh… only two replies, I saw. And thought: I’ll jump in with “Sugar Mountain”; no one else will post that one. I’ll score fast and hard.
Sure I will. Sure.
My favorite actually came out long after I was officially in the Young Adult category, but it’s always been one of my favorite genres anyway. My mother is a sixth grade teacher, so she’s a good source of good new books.
The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a soft sci-fi book about a future utopic(ish) community and a young protaganists’ loss of innocence as he ends his childhood. It’s really great, although there is one scene which a lot of kids find profoundly disturbing, and it’s best to read with someone around to answer difficult questions for those under 14 or so.
It seems to me, that a big part of the first film is about Luke growing up from a boy to a man. His determination to leave his uncle’s safe life is a common theme. Is there a name for the role of Han Solo (young adult who helps the boy in his own transistion)?
This is a theme I find interesting-any Greek myths associated with it?
I love Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle, an ironic song about a kid who grows up to be just like his dad.
Childhood’s End, by Pink Floyd. Okay, not really. But it is a great song.
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck, about a Shaker boy in 1930s Vermont losing the trappings of childhood rather abruptly.
The Brass Ring by Bill Mauldin. Bill’s autobiography, from childhood on the mexican border to the duration of WWII. Surprising how many youthful illusions he held onto well into his wartime experiences.
Chattahoochie by Alan Jackson.
Childhood’s End, by the recently late Arthur C. Clarke.
Here, the entire human race leaves its childhood behind.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Technically, the characters in Logan’s Run only barely made it to adulthood.
I think Neil Diamond’s* Shiloh * & Peter Paul & Mary’s *Puff the Magic Dragon * are my favorite examples of this, musically. Book wise, It’d be A Tree Grows In Brooklyn…
The last story in the Winnie The Pooh books has the tear-jerkiest example of this theme. The loss and separation as Christopher Robin is heading off to school are palpable.
In the film version they made it to 30.
In the original novel childhood ended at age 14 and they had a full seven years of adulthood before Sleep.
Well, they called 14-21 adulthood, but that doesn’t make it so.
Tori Amos has two touching songs that deal with growing up. My favorite (one of my favorite songs in general, actually), called Winter, is about a girl growing up and dealing with the fact that her father won’t always be around the way he is when she’s a child. I always loved this song, and then my daughter was born, and now it’s really affecting.
I hear a voice you must learn to stand up
For yourself cause I can’t always be around
He says when you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I’ll always want you near
You say that things change my dear
The other is called Ribbons Undone, a lighter song told from a parent’s perspective about a little girl growing up. Treacley as hell, but still cute:
My little pony is growing up fast
she corrects me and says
“You mean a thoroughbred”
A look in her eye says the battle’s beginning
From school she comes home and cries
I don’t want to grow up Mom
At least not tonight
“Morning Girl” by Neon Philharmonic
When my friends* turned 20 (You can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain), we had a Sugar Mountain party, to celebrate the end of our childhood (and incidentally, get wildly drunk). We brought pictures of our parents (And the candy floss you had/And your mother and your dad) and had plenty of colored balloons. Several of us pretended it was our first cigarette.
Some of us were a little too much into Neil Young.
I also nominate To Kill a Mockingbird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, as well as a funny little book on which the movie Paper Moon was based, Addie Pray.
- I, however, was only turning 19 that year and, befitting my still-childhood state, I wore a frilly dress and carried a big lollypop!