Yes, I know. It's completely unfair. But they're really cute, those kids, and, let's face it, you really...aren't. How rude! you exclaim with vehemence. That is not nice, Mister! You're right; you're so right. I apologize. How about this instead: they're just really cute, and you, well, you might be cute, but you aren't as cute as they are. Probably due to your age, I'd imagine. Does that work? So you're saying I'm old now? you growl. No, you just aren't a kid anymore; that's all I said. There comes a time in everyone's life when the Apostle Paul, law of nature, and the social contract order you to put away "childish things." Children, as long as they are children, are allowed to do many things that adults are not allowed to do. Why, just this afternoon my nephew lay down on the floor of a store and began singing, out loud, a whole medley of made-up songs he had devised based upon the pictures and colors in the songbook he was holding (Note: One of the songs had to do with "all of the men and women and boys and girls and pianos God created").
But had you or I done the same thing, not only would every other customer in the store immediately have shunned us and emitted faint--or not so faint--whispers of "koo-koo" or references to dull shovels, dim lightbulbs, or incomplete bunches of bananas under their breath but you or I might have been escorted from the store for disturbing the ever-so-sacred peace of the other patrons. The fact that everyone, including the employees, laughed at the little boy's one-of-a-kind, never-before-heard melodies is a testament to the amount of things that children can get away with because they are deemed innocent, cute, or otherwise too young to know any better.
It's not fair, you say. I should be allowed to do anything a child is allowed to do. That rule is obviously based on age discrimination. (By the way, age discrimination is also how seniors are given discounts and Social Security benefits; it's extremely pervasive in our society). It's a double-standard, and we can't have that.
So what are you going to do about it? Act like a kid? Some parents allow their children to run around in their birthday suits after they take a bath. Some children even talk to their animals, bugs, trees, toilets, celestial bodies, and invisible friends (Note: My little sister doesn't go anywhere without her little invisible friend, whom she congratulates and commiserates with constantly). And some are simply content to try to force the plastic circle through the triangle hole in their plastic box, expecting that one of those times it will magically fit (Note: Albert Einstein called that insanity, but if you're under the age of ten it just means you're kid). But if you attempt these sorts of activities after or even during adolescence, you will either go to a mental hospital, a rest home, a nudist colony, or prison. We simply cannot have adults around who refuse to act like adults.
But it's not fair, you repeat. My invisible friends are people, too. Shouldn't I be allowed to talk to them whenever I want? Yes, you are most certainly permitted to speak to your unseen amigos.
In a padded room, that is. It'll be jist you an' them in a rubber cell, and you kin talk an' reminisce an' do whativer ya darn well wanna do. Okey-dokey? Heck, the staff'll probably even let ya run around naked if'n you wanna. How's that sound, pardner?
But...but I don't want people to think I'm crazy. I just don't want people telling me to act.
Well, you are crazy if you think you can be an adult and still act like a kid. We think those things are cute when kids do them because that is how kids are supposed to act. They are exploring the world, both internally and externally, and these things are a result of that exploration and development. But we can't just have grown people plunking themselves down in the middle of a store and singing about the babies in treetops; boats being rowed merrily, merrily, merrily downstream; or wheels on buses going round and round. It isn't our place. We shouldn't try to steal their spotlight by acting like them. We might as well act like monkeys, picking fleas off of our neighbors back and launching poo at anyone we happen to encounter as act like children. Neither one suits us. So deal with it: kids will be kids. The audience must not participate, only enjoy the show. And what a show it is.
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