Letting Go

I don’t know if it was started by our parents or our parents’ parents, but somewhere back in time a huge lie was born.

The lie is that being an adult is harder than being a kid. Our parents mentally drilled this lie in to our brains from an early age, until we accepted it as the truth. Waiting for us outside, we were told forebodingly, was “a cold, cruel world.” Or we were warned, “It’s a jungle out there,” as if it was a big, scary place posing dangerous pitfalls at every turn.

For forty-three years I myself had believed this lie. Of course being a kid was easier than being an adult. As a kid, you have no real responsibilities. From day one you poop in your pants and someone else cleans it up for you. You cry and someone feeds you. Really, what could be easier? Someone is serving you at your beck and call round-the-clock.

For the first two years of The Toddler’s life I continued to buy into this long-held belief that if a choice was given and you could be a kid or an adult, well of course you’d rather be a kid.

But recently I’ve begun to question the foundations upon which this belief is built. Yes, being an adult is hard work. But, for the most part, life as an adult isn’t scary or threatening. Sure there are times you walk down a dark alley and hear footsteps, either real or imagined. But most of life as an adult follows a pretty set routine. True surprises in our lives are rare occurrences.

Imagine being a kid, though. Every day is a surprise. You’re learning something new with each step you take. Even by the time you’re a teen, you’re still feeling your way around new and scary worlds – the opposite sex being one of them. I don’t know about you, but there’s no way in the world that I’d relive those adolescent, pimple-popping years over again. Sure we like to wax nostalgic about those days, but it seems that when we reminisce our brains White-Out all the bad parts and leave only the good.

A recent event in The Toddler’s life got me thinking about just how scary everyday life is for a kid. Things that we, as adults, take for granted, like going to the restroom, can be truly frightening experiences if your not even three feet tall.

This particular event began with Mommy taking The Toddler to a restroom in a busy restaurant. While in the restroom, The Toddler and Mommy were separated for a couple of moments, which was just long enough for The Toddler to wonder, “Where’s Mommy,” and become very afraid.

Eyes dart one way and then the other. It’s a warm summer evening and all they see are bare legs. But which ones are Mommy’s?

The Toddler was lost in a forest of lower limbs. Instinct at some point took over and he grabbed the nearest pair and clung to them as if his life depended on it.

When Mommy reappeared she found The Toddler wrapped around the legs of a stranger, who didn’t know what to make of this creature that had attached itself to her legs. When Mommy called The Toddler’s name, he looked her way. His face flushed with embarrassment as he realized his mistake, released the Kung-Fu grip he maintained on the stranger, and ran to where he belonged.

Long ago when our parents let us go and cautioned, “It’s a jungle out there,” perhaps they forgot that we’d been let go many times before. By the time they let us go for good that world isn’t nearly as cold and cruel as it once was. But maybe they really knew that, and that’s why they knew it was time to let us go.