I know I do. I haven’t even been a real adult for all that long (depending on your definition, I may never have been, but that’s a matter of opinion meant for GD, not here, IMHO) having just turned 21 this past spring. But if I could go back and be a kid again - I mean like a little kid, playing in the sandbox and putting dirt in my brother’s hair - I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Too much stress being a grown-up.
Stop the world - I want off!
-Syko
Yikes!
When I saw the subject line, I thought “Hell yeah. I’d love to be back in college again!”. Old enough to do just about anything you want, with mom and dad to sponge off. It was like a fantasy land.
Now that I’ve read the OP…shit, I’m gettin’ old.
Don’t know if I’d want to go back to the sandbox stage, but I must admit, I do envy my kids sometimes. Three squares a day, plenty of toys, and Christmas to look forward to. Not too bad…
Nope.
For all the stress and responsibility… I really like being an adult, and doing adult things. Like staying up late to watch Letterman, or going out for drinks with friends.
No way… I had a terrible childhood… well not totally terrible but I prefer adulthood even with the responsibilities (which I have yet to fully face as I still live at home and am going to school at age 18… though I do vote)
Kids are so cruel… I don’t want to go through that again. Nor do I want to relive the hell that was junior high.
I’m still young, but I wish I could go back…life was good then. If you wanted a cookie, all you had to was whine. Now, If I whine, not only do I look stupid, but I get slapped and told to “shut the hell up!” And I wish it was still socially acceptable to have stuffed animals. I collected many over the course of my childhood, and can’t bear to get rid of them. Since there is not much spare room in the house, most of them are still in my room and I get the weirdest looks from my friends when they come to visit. Plus, the whole school thing. No midterms, no worrying about GPA, no SAT’s…
sigh
Hell no! You couldn’t pay me to be anything close to a kid again, and that’s including college-age, you tiny child.
Absolutely not. No way!
While it’s true that kids don’t have to worry about paying the bills or getting hassle at work, it’s not all rosy. I hated school intensely, despite being one of the most intelligent people in my class. It just bored me, and I resented the fact that I had no choice in the matter. Which brings me to my next point… as a kid, you have to do as you’re told, when you’re told. When you grow up, you have a world of choices, and can do pretty much as you damn well please, with a few exceptions.
For all its responsibilities, adulthood wins hands-down in my opinion. I can come and go as I please, do what I want rather than what I’m told, and I have the satisfaction of being able to stand on my own two feet and support myself. Add in the fact that I’m also able to smoke and drink, and it’s a winner 
No, I do not. I enjoy being an adult, being a parent, being able to make my own decisions. I was teased mercilessly as a child because I was a) a year younger than everyone in my classes as I skipped a grade; b) was fat; c) was a redhead; d) was smarter than everyone I knew.
HA! I’m still smart, I’m still a redhead, and I’ve turned out better than 90% of those yahoos!
My childhood in my home was great, I just hated the idiots I went to school with.
I still colour with my crayons,
and I take my stuffed kitties
to bed with me, there is no law
against it so why can’t I do it?
I like to play outside in the rain,
pick my boogers and flick them,
play in the sand, jump in my leafpile,
slosh in the puddles, and watch my
FAVOURITE show, Rugrats on Nickelodeon.
I don’t see why I should have to give
up any of these things, yes I do
my growed up necesseties and chores
but when they are all DONE, I go and
play and do whatever makes me happy
so long as I don’t hurt anyone else.
I wear my Pooh and Tigger shirts
and overalls, and my Chuckie Rugrats
shirt, I don’t get why I should not
do these things, I am not breaking
any laws or hurting anyone,
and it makes me happy, so I
will do it, I am not worried
if someone laughs, I think its
funny that they don’t know what
real fun is, and then they have
the stupidness to ask me why I am
laughing 
I like to make my budds laugh anyway,
I do a long loud rude burp and
laugh my butt off, they laugh their
butts off and say ‘do it again!!’
I do voice impersonations of
a few celebrities, Beavis and Butthead,
Bert and Ernie, Eddie Murphy,
Cookie Monster, Robin Leach,
& a few more.
I don’t find that going out to
pubs and such is very interesting
to me at all, sports on telly
(football, yecch!) and beer
do not interest me at all,
I will leave the baseball and
basketball watching to my dad,
nothing against him, if he likes it,
let him watch it, at least he does not
force it in my ear.
I’m single and plan to stay that
way, relationships are just trouble,
nothing but those who are mean to you
and don’t understand you, just want to
complain at you all the time, make you
sad with their problems, “bring you down
and be uncool and heavy” as my old hippie
cousin would say.
So the ‘adult things’ are just chores
that have to be done like bills and
chequebooks and stuff, and when all
the work is done, and done right,
it’s time for fun, my style,
apple juice and/or soda, not beer,
Rugrats, Veggie Tales, PB&J Otter,
not football or the news, if something
is that important, dad or a frend will
call me.
So I’m off to play with kitty now,
bye. >^…^<
I’m with Tigger. Being a child was excruciating. I was ignorant and (duh) immature, and I had to spend all my time around other kids, who were as bad or worse. All I ever wanted to be when I was a kid was an adult.
Now I’m an adult, and as C.S. Lewis says, I have “put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown-up.”
At some point in my late teens I realized that maturity is something that happens to you whether you want it or not–no need to seek it out. So I’m a grown woman and I play games and watch cartoons and I don’t wear high heels or shudder pantyhose. I pay the bills and don’t hurt anybody, so anybody who thinks that I’m childish or undignified or that my hobbies are a waste of time can go take a flying leap.
The anxieties and stress I feel today are nothing compared to the agnonies I put myself through when I was a child.
Sometimes I do wish I was a kid again, because when I was a kid I didn’t know how awful things could be… that people could be poor, or hungry, or addicted to drugs, etc.
But… being an adult rocks! I can stay out as late as I want, eat what I want, come and go as I please, buy what I want, whatever, and I love that! I honestly have few responsibilities, and that makes a big difference, I guess. I mean, I actually have fewer now than I did as a kid. No school, no summer camp, no dancing lessons, piano lessons, and I only go to church when I want (which actually should probably be more). No mean-ass nuns and schoolteachers, no vegetables unless I want to eat them, and I can watch all scary movies I want.
I mean, look, I’m not exactly a party animal, but you get the idea. Independence is a blast.
The downside to being an adult, for me, is that most of my relatives are dead, and I do miss them. But other than that, I’m enjoying myself.
I wouldn’t mind spending a day or two at age 4 again, just to remember the wisdom and joy for the world I had as a child. But relive it all again? No thanks. The choices I’ve made have shaped me, and for the most part, my life is okay.
HA! HA HA freakin’ HA! I would kill (yes, kill) to be 15 again. Not because I can’t deal with the responsibility of being an adult, or because life was easier when I was 15 (FWIW, I don’t think there is an “easier” - just different… Besides, since I moved out that year, I did have most of the responsibilities of an adult) but because I never ONCE had to question the reality of friendship. My friends when I was 15 were my friends. They weren’t people who only called me when they needed a ride somewhere, or when they needed to borrow money or whatever. They called me because they wanted to see a movie, or go shopping - they called me because they wanted to spend time with ME. Not my car or my cell phone or my wallet, but ME. I don’t have friends like that anymore.
Absolutely not. As an adult I’m happy – I have a great job, live in a great area, and can do the things that interest me. As a child I was miserable and often suicidal – I was subjected to almost daily violence and intimidation, lived in a horrible redneck town, and had nowhere to turn to for support. The good news is that as I get older those bad times get farther away while the good times of adulthood remain.
I’m with the naysayers on this. I personally wonder if my “I-wish-I-were-a-kid-again” friends are going senile. Especially the ones I knew as a kid, who were always miserable, and now think they were happy…
My childhood was a nightmare I’m glad I woke up from. I remember counting off the days until I turned 18, so I could leave home and start fresh somewhere else.
And I did.
And I wouldn’t return for all the money in the world.
Hell no, not for a million bucks. As much as I feel buffeted about by the storms of Fate (who has a wicked sense of humor I must say) I still feel more in control of what happens to me than ever I did as a child. I don’t have to please everyone else, just me.
And that’s hard enough.
Definitely not! I feel like I have only just escaped from my childhood, now that I am finally getting some independence after not really having any for a long time (long story.) I’ve only recently started to think of myself as a woman, not as a kid. I take great pride in the fact that I am an adult, to want to be a kid again would be humiliating to me.
(like that post in another thread where the poster is saying she is treated as a child in the Christmas Draw because she’s unmarried but her younger married sister is treated as an adult and she is overjoyed because it means buying cheaper presents!-but I would find that horribly humiliating myself, I would demand to be equal with the married people as an adult, it would be a point of pride with me, greater expense or no greater expense, ah well that’s the beauty of the SDMB you get to experience viewpoints you can’t really comprehend or understand!)
No thankyou. I “moved” 500 miles from my hometown for highschool just so I wouldn’t have to tolerate the people I knew back home. I moved back home for college so I’d never see the folks in high school again.
I wouldn’t relive my childhood unless I could have an “out” any time I wanted.
I’m 25, and still waiting to grow up.
Nope. I wouldn’t go back for anything, although I had a reasonably happy childhood, at least until junior high. Even then, I found being treated like a kid incredibly frustrating; nobody took my opinions seriously, even on subjects about which I knew far more than the adults, such as school. Besides, I like being free to do things on my own, and at my own pace.