Kids These Days

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As I walked home from AU the other day, happily crunching leaves underfoot on the sidewalk, I glanced up to a disturbing sight. Ahead of me, also walking home from school but going the opposite direction, was a young couple, holding hands. Just as I saw them, the boy leaned over and kissed the girl on the cheek.

They had been (I assume) taking about recess and cooties, and I pegged them at about 4th-grade.

It was all rather disgusting, and led me to question the pace of our society. Why do kids need to grow up so fast?

Why couldn’t this girl have been walking home with “just a friend” instead of acting like she’d been through puberty and really did “like like” this boy? Why did this kid have to be more worried about impressing his girlfriend with his studded belt and off-brand Chuck Taylors than about re-enacting Spiderman with his dog, McScruffles, a.k.a., The Terminator?

The only solution, as I see it, is for we adults (ahem, yes, that’s you, college students) not to let the real world obscure our childish moments. I’m not talking about a spitball revival.

I’m talking about being friends with a boy/girl and not worrying about hormones. About jumping in a pile of leaves.  About baking cookies and burning your tongue because you try to eat them before they’re cool. About relaxing and enjoying the days you have, not rushing and trying to be grown-up all the time. We’re not giving kids time to be kids these days.

After my lengthy pondering on the serious young couple I had witnessed, I went back to stomping on every leaf that crossed my path.  Crunch.