Do You Wish You Were a Kid Again? Why?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Couldn’t pay me to be a kid again. I had a pretty good childhood, but I was just saying last night to the spouse that I’m eternally grateful that, much as I love the internet now, I got to grow up through my formative years without it.

I was an only child and my mom, though I loved her dearly and she was very good to me, wasn’t really too good at preparing me for dealing with people in the real world. As a result I was pretty gullible and socially awkward in grade school/junior high. Having Facebook and other areas for kids to be cruel to each other probably wouldn’t have been such a good thing for me.

Now, college? I’d go back to that, especially if I could know then what I know now. I’d make some changes to my life plan and, though I’d probably be in a similar position to the one I’m in now (the major I’d change to would be even more appropriate to my current job than my real one was, and I’d definitely want the same friends and relationships), I’d have taken a lot of chances at a lot younger age and maybe achieved some dreams sooner.

42

Not childhood, no, although it was very happy. Now, college maybe so. Most of the benefits and few of the liabilities of adulthood.

43

I’d enjoy being 15 again and not have the aches and pains that I deal with today. Back then I could hike a good twenty mile day and still not feel it that night in camp. Yeah I was tired but not hurting. Now even ten miles and I’ll be stiff that night. Often wake up with my legs cramping.

Teens have no idea how lucky they are to have no lasting aches or pains.

44

All the benefits and joys of childhood pale in comparison to getting laid.

45

I was 21, same age as the OP.

We’re 33 now! Eeeeeeek!

46

Only if I could start with another family.
Understand: I loved my Mom & Dad…but all the kids hate one another.
We were raised to be perfectionists, to the point of being self-destructive. And raised to be rivals for attention, not pals.
We never lacked for meals, or warm clothes, or health care, or a roof over our heads…or endless, endless belittling & bickering. If a kid got less than a “B” at school, even in Gym, a roaring shouting match began, that could go on for weeks. And “A” got no recognition or praise in the family circle. None at all. God help you, if you got sent to the Principal’s Office.

I remember the day that I came home from High School with the news that all my hard work had won me an academic scholarship (no, I do not claim to be brilliant, I worked and sacrificed for that scholarship). Dad just told me to shut up…he was eating dinner.

I’ve actually fantasized about being a kid again, & being adopted out.

47

I’d kill myself if I had to live with my late verbally and physically abusive mother ever again. It took years of marriage to the best man I ever met before I stopped cringing when I dropped a glass, expecting a three hour yelling and hitting session. Plus she was allergic to cats and I adore being Alpha Pussy.

48

I’m 50 and I’m actively avoiding it.

49

Yes, because it would mean my mom would be alive again.

That’s the only reason I’d want to go back, though.

50

I bet the OP, wherever s/he is, is sitting somewhere now thinking: “I wish I was 21 again. It’s too much stress being a grown-up.”

51

Saw the post, and was like, dude, I know this guy doesn’t post here anymore, did he come back? But…no. For the record, he’s a million times more awesome now.

To answer the question, sometimes, but then I remember just how little control I had over my life. I would like the chance to redo some things, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all the attendant bullshit.

52

One of the cool things about having a kid is that you get most of the good stuff about being a kid, without the bad. The Firebug and I play with trains and Legos together, go into the woods and throw gumballs into the creek and watch them float downstream, and now that he’s gotten sufficiently good at riding a bike, we’re going to go ride bikes together this weekend. (Wasn’t any point to it while I could still keep up with him on foot, but he’s raised his game. :)) But I don’t have to worry about bullies on the playground, or any of that bad shit I remember from my own childhood.

53

No. Childhood was horrible. Horrible. No. The idea is creepy.

Actually I guess the idea’s been creepy for a dozen years.

54

I can’t think of any age I’d want to go back to permanently in preference to my current age and situation. And if you sentenced me to redo my childhood I’d kill you and then commit suicide. (That’s assuming I’d be tossed back in time and end up in the same situations I was in in my own past. It’s harder to assess how I’d feel about being 8 years old in 2013: where? With whom, with which adults, enrolled or imprisoned where, exactly? With what other kids?)

BUT…

If you gave me a magic door key that let me step back into 1968, 1963, 1974, etc, for a brief visit and then I get to come back, hell yeah.

In fact, sometimes it’s really hard to wrap my mind around the notion that I will never ever again be in 1968. There were things I knew how to do, and I still know how to do them. Whaddaya MEAN, I’ll never get to ride my bike down the block and drop in on Grace and tap on her windowsill like she showed me? And I know how to walk to my school all by myself and get in line in front of my classroom door. How can it be possible that I never get to go back and do that again? That just seems wrong. They should be like reruns on TV or something. I have nostalgia, dammit!

55

I am 37 and a homeowner and I wish I was a kid right before I pay the bills or when I had to pay to replace the roof, AC and furnace. My wife caught me saying “I wish I was a kid” after paying the bills. She grabbed my hand and led me into the bedroom for some “adult” time. Afterward, she said “Aren’t you glad you aren’t a kid now.” :slight_smile:

56

If you add “knowing what you know now” I would sure like to take a shot at it. My childhood was miserable. I was an undiagnosed High Functioning Autistic. They didn’t have a name for that 50 years ago except “weirdo”.

It would be nice to go back and have a childhood with today’s support net.

57

You can probably imagine what my answer is going to be.

I was honestly trying to come up with the truly happy moments in my whole life before the end of high school. I managed to come up with “one vacation to Disney World” and “when I got my NES” before coming up completely empty.

Hey, know all those adult hassles your parents always warned you about? Bills, taxes, working 40 hours or more a week, getting out of shape, having to shop for essentials? Well, all that is jumping jack squat peanuts nada compared to (I’ll try to keep this concise):

  • The inmates running the asylum. Worthless, crazed, sociopathic, disgusting, foul, ugly, stinking, repulsive, anarchic, horrible, bad stupid evil wrong EVIL EVIL BAD BAD people being able to do any goddam thing they want and make my life a constant living hell NEVER get the slightest punishment EVER. And supposed authoirty figures who always had a million and one mealy-mouthed excuses and basically told me to pee up a rope.

  • My parents, who were flat-out deranged. Honestly, I look at them today, and I almost can’t believe these were the utter lunatics who made my home life constant fear for much of my childhood.

  • School, which in terms of sheer dysfunction, dishonesty, and injustice rivalled some third-world nations. It was so out of control, I almost always forget how ridiculous most of the coursework was. Can anyone honestly say that there was any benefit to force-feeding us Shakespeare? Or religion? Trying to teach a foreign language in high school? It’s like oil painting in the middle of a hurricane.

  • No freedom. I had to go to crappy, chaotic schools. I had to go to whatever ridiculous party or painful weekend activity my parents wanted. I had to play piano, had to waste six ridiculous months in the Boy Scouts for FSM knows what reason, had to be bored out of my mind in the summer.

Work? I can handle 40 hours a week. If you’re not an immature jerk, it’s easy. Tasks are (for the most part) clearly defined and well within my abilities. The worst co-workers and bosses I’ve had in my life I wouldn’t have even noticed in my childhood. And I get paid for it.
Taxes? Paycheck deductions are made automatically, so that never catches me off guard, and with a computer tax returns are a piece of cake.
Bills? Shopping? You use, you pay. As long as you’re working and earning (and I understand that’s a big problem for a lot of people these days), it’s nothing special. So long as you’re not an irresponsible jerk or anything.
Getting out of shape? Hey, can’t lose what I never had. If anything, I’m exercising of my own initiative far more than I did at pretty much any previous point of my life.
Children? If you can’t deal with them, don’t have them. It’s that simple. We’re a long way removed from the colonial era where this was an obligation for everyone.
Dealing with jerks? Here’s the thing about the adult world: If you act like a colossal, good for nothing jerk, others see at it as such, and it will hurt you. Maybe not immediately, maybe not drastically, but you’ll feel it. Service workers are less helpful. Police take longer to respond. The singles at the bar don’t want anything to do with you. Bosses are less forgiving, co-workers less friendly. And there absolutely won’t be an army of apologists and enablers excusing every bit of crap you pull and doing absolutely nothing to deter your behavior. Do something serious like start a fight, molest an underage girl, or even just make threats (all of which have happened in my line of work, although thankfully not in my office)? That will get you arrested, which is never a fun experience. And one offense gets you locked up; no second or tenth or five hundredth chances here. I can guarantee that I’m having it a lot better than ANY of the dirtbags I knew in childhood.

I don’t particularly like driving, and traffic has gotten pretty nasty as of late. But I have a car (and it runs like a dream), which is something I never had before college.

Want my childhood back? Hah, I wish it ended sooner. I could’ve gotten job experience when the market was still pretty decent.

58

Other than to change a couple of specific moments (I wouldn’t have punched Sherri Mallory in the nose, for example), there’s no way I would ever go back to those days.

59

yep I was 11, living my childhood when OP was missing, believe me, he didn’t miss much.
there are some aspects of my childhood that i did like, but most of them didn’t involve too many other people,

i liked the feeling of being young and knowing i had plenty of time to be young,
now I’m approaching 24 that feeling of being younger than many people is slipping away quickly and it’s uncomfortable, feel like i still haven’t had a lot of the experiences and successes i should have had at this point, plus i’m still as shy as i was in my teens and still uncertain about my future career direction.

i think i’ll be more accepting about being grown and letting go of any over hyped childhood nostalgia i have once my adult life is much more established, leaving home will probably do wonders for that.

But for now i’m still going to uni, working part time with everyone still living in the same house we’ve been in throughout my teenage years, i still catch the bus more than i drive and drink coke more than i drink beer or coffee.

i’m pretty much just an older, significantly more mature teenager at this point.

60

I wonder if our op now has kids of his/her own and has found out that they the best excuse for getting on swings and playing in the sandbox and acting silly an adult could hope for …