Oh, To Be a Child Again–Or Not

One of the many humorous/inspiring/possibly fake/probably plagiarized emails that periodically circulates around the Internet is about “resigning from adulthood.” It talks about turning in your driver’s license and becoming a kid again. In honor of its most recent appearance, here’s an update of a response I wrote to it several years ago.

Are you kidding? Who would ever want to be a kid again? True, adults have more responsibility: we’re expected to do grownup-type things like hold down real jobs and pay bills. But I’ll accept that responsibility any day in return for all the benefits of being an adult. Here are just a few of them:

• No algebra homework.

• You get to choose your own bedtime.

• You get to plan your own menus and decide for yourself whether to finish your vegetables.

• In the car, you almost always get to sit in the front by a window.

• You can paint your room whatever color you want.

• You can eat watermelon just before bedtime if you want to.

• If a telemarketer calls and asks “Is your mother home?” you can say something smart-alecky like, “I don’t know; I haven’t talked to her since Tuesday.”

• You can decide for yourself whether you’re cold and should put on a sweater.

• Nobody says you can only read one more chapter before you go to bed.

• You can pick out your own clothes.

• If you take a nap, it’s because you want to, not because someone says you have to.

• If you drop a glass and it shatters all over the sink, and you say a four-letter word, nobody threatens to wash your mouth out with soap.

• You can call teachers and principals by their first names.

• You get to do anything your older siblings get to do.

• If you want a puppy or a kitten, you don’t have to settle for a goldfish or a hamster.

Yep, I’ve been a child and I’ve been an adult. Trust me: adulthood is better.