Especially when they’re religious. So many more rules! At my school, for example, the only pictures you were allowed to put up in your locker were photos of immediate family or depictions of Jesus. And (as mentioned in a different thread) when I yelled at another kid that “I didn’t even believe in God!” (which actually wasn’t true at the time, though it is now) I got paddled. I’d say that my negative views of childhood are fairly evenly divided between being raised by a chronically depressed, emotionally unavailable, neglectful, single mother and being sent to Christian school, where I didn’t fit in AT ALL. One of the few things I have in common with my mother is that we’re both Democrats, and there is no place for a Democratic kid in a religious school. They used to play a game called “kill the commie” which involved chasing me around the playground throwing rocks at me all through lunch and recess. Fun times.