Eight Things I Miss About Childhood

The older I get, the more nostalgic I get for the times when I lived at home with my parents and sister and didn’t have many obligations or worries. Looking back with rosy pink glasses, everything seemed so much better, easier, and fun.

Now I am old, I have a full-time job, have to pay rent, cook myself, and do chores. Although I still have some free time, I usually spend it on things that seem more responsible, like making extra income or improving my life and living conditions. No longer can I just go into my basement, pull on my headphones, and fall asleep to the Smashing Pumpkin’s Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness CD on repeat.

Here are some things I really miss about childhood and I am sure most of you have similar experiences as me. Of course, this list is missing things like video games, sweet cereal, toys, a bicycle, amusement parks, and cartoons. But I think that is because let’s face it, a lot of us still have or do those things regularly.

This list is more things that I miss that I can no longer do because I am an adult.

Free Everything

The first and most obvious is that as a child, everything was virtually free. Your parents or grandparents covered costs for everything in your life from clothes, food, shelter, and Pogs.

If you wanted to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it was ready for you in a stocked fridge. If you craved pizza, you could try to ask your parents to order it for you or you could take that 2 dollars a week allowance you were given and go to the local pizzeria and buy a slice.

Nike shoes, Levis Jeans, GAP sweaters, JanSport bags, Crayola crayons, Lego, Sega game cartridges, WWF wrestling figurines, muscle men toys, Garbage Pail Kids cards, they were all a request to your parents away from being yours.

Your mom did laundry, food was bought, cooked, and served for you as well. And rent or utilities was not part of your vocabulary. Your only real obligation to your home and family was to not die. And sometimes washing the dishes, vacuuming, or taking out the trash would work as well.

Fortune Telling Games About Your Future

I am sure children of the modern age of social media, smartphones and online games don’t really know much about this, but it was our Candy Crush.

Depending on the country you lived in, the rules or design were different but most likely you had some similar type of pen and paper game where you would predict your future.

A game we called Mash would be able to thoroughly predict the car you would drive, the type of dwelling you would own, your dream partner, and how many kids you would have.

Or maybe you and your friends were more dexterous and built those origami fortune-telling contraptions that you would place on your fingers and move back and forth with secret messages under the flaps. Almost like an analog version of the magic 8-ball.

Whatever it was, as children curious about our future and still filled with dreams and hopes, these games were our gateway drug into adulthood.

School Dances

Looking back, some people cringe at their attendance at these dances that took place in the school gymnasium. The weird streamers and cut-outs of the holiday you were celebrating, styrofoam cups with soda and juice, the paper plates with Cheetos, Doritos, and popcorn.

The cool kids recall the public displays of affection that were had in the middle of the dancefloor as couples danced close together and guys got boners because their chest grazed a girl’s breasts.

The uncool geeks and nerds felt the shame of not being asked or not having the courage to ask someone to dance and standing against the wall. And girls and boys had separate walls to stand against.

And though all that sounds dreadful, I miss it so much. I was part of the uncool group, never asked a girl to dance, never even made eye contact with a girl. But the dark gym, the bass from the speakers, the cheesy DJ, and terrible Top 40 song choices all felt so safe.

I can go to clubs, lounges, house parties and have even asked girls to dance. But it’s just not the same as when I was young and had to wear K-mart clothes and gel my hair.

Discount Tickets

Being a child meant you were special enough to have your own category for admission to places. As a child you could ride public transportation for less, enter movies, amusement parks, and museums at a discounted rate and even get special meals suited for your size and tastes.

Any place where money was required, usually came with a rate for adults, seniors, and children. And usually, children were the cheapest. It made your parents feel better about having to fork out cash and it made you feel special because you belonged in an elite group.

And the best feeling in the world was when children under 12 were free. That magic VIP pass allowed you to enjoy everything others did without having to spend a penny. Although, you were always free regardless because parents paid for everything (See number 1). But just the idea that you were part of an exclusive group that was allowed to go where you pleased because of your age, was a euphoric feeling.

Chuck E. Cheese/Arcades/Play lands

Of course, arcades, playlands, and places like Chuck E. Cheese are accessible to everyone, but these places were originally made and targeted to kids.

Entering the place and smelling all the aromas like pizza, popcorn, cigarette smoke, and bleach, you were in heaven.

And the sounds of coins being inserted, beeps and bloops of the games, the splash of plastic balls as kids jumped head in and the animatronic movements and music of the robot characters all made you want to live there forever.

As an adult, you can still walk in here, eat some pizza, play some games and possibly even try to jump into the pool of colored plastic balls, but the thrill is gone. The euphoric feeling of play no longer feels as satisfying as it did before. Trust me. I tried it. The little girl I scared when diving into the pit of balls was not impressed.

Lockers

Having a locker in junior high school and high school was an experience that will never be duplicated in life as an adult. I have a locker at my work where I leave my stuff but it’s not cool. I have a locker at the gym where I change my clothes and sometimes I leave things in the train station lockers when I don’t want to carry things around while I shop.

But the magic is gone. It will never be as awesome as locker 1103 that was mine for an entire year at my high school. The inside smelled like gym clothes, Cool Ranch Doritos, and musty books. I had my books above, my shoes below, and hung my jacket and backpack in the middle. The inner door of the locker had pictures of Mariah Carey when she played an innocent girl and Sum41 magnets.

And the best part, my locker was next to the cutest girl in my class, Linda. Sometimes we would bump into each other between classes or she would drop a book and I would hand it back to her. I would get to peek into her locker at times and get a glimpse into the life of a beautiful 15-year-old girl.

Of course, the other locker next to mine was owned by a huge asshole named Goerge who liked whipping people with rubber snakes for fun. But it was worth getting whipped once in a while because Linda’s amazing scent of Tide detergent and cherry lip balm made up for it.

Circle of Friends

No matter how unpopular or introverted you were, there were always chances to meet and befriend people. Starting with the beginning of school, you were sat next to the same group of people every day which meant you could probably make friends with at least one of them.

As the school year went on, people would gravitate towards their group. The hippie pot smokers sat outside on the hill, the jocks and cute girls congregated at the cafeteria laughing and flirting with each other. The nerds played card games or read books, the social butterflies joined the choir, drama club, or helped create the yearbook.

And of course, the losers, freaks, and slackers also hung out with their brethren. Everyone belonged somewhere. And each year as classes or schools changed, so did your group of friends. There was never a time when you wouldn’t be introduced to a new circle of people.

Every month a new seating arrangement, every year a new class change, every couple of years a new school. People were always revolving around you and you could make a good circle of friends keeps you busy.

Once adulthood arrived, unless you stayed in contact with those same groups of people and grew old together in the same neighborhood, most likely you were on your own.

You still meet people at gatherings or work but everyone has already cemented themselves in their own life that it’s hard to make new friends. People are married, have their own kids, or stick with the same group of friends that keep them grounded.

Even the circle of friend you have during childhood are not the same when you are older. People live far away, have other obligations, other friends, and don’t hang out every day like they did when they were in school together.

The older you get, the smaller your circle of friends get and the less amount of time you get to spend with them.

Sleepovers

Maybe some people didn’t enjoy this as much as I did, but for me sleeping over as a child at my friend’s home was better than winning a free trip to Hawaii for a week. I used to beg my parents to let me sleep over at a friend’s house or have them sleep over at mine.

The thrill of packing my small turtle-shaped backpack with my pajamas, toothbrush, and a change of clothes was just as good as the car ride in the back pursuing each other’s baseball and hockey cards collections as my friend’s parents drove us to their home.

Sometimes we would stop at a Pizza Hut and all share pizza and cokes before heading home and into my friend’s bedroom. We were treated to cookies and juice from his mom, listened to his latest mixtape, and pulled out all the superhero toys we had accumulated over birthdays and Christmases to enact our own adventure.

Even after lights out, sleeping in the makeshift bed on the floor, looking up at the ceiling with glow in the dark stars and planets, we chatted about girls and what we wanted to be when we grew up. We stayed up as late as we could be just excited and filled with energy the next day despite the lack of sleep.

I guess all these things are not impossible to recreate as an adult but the same excitement and childhood energy is gone. Now I am just a weird 40 something guy roaming the retro toys at the local toy shop. I have an etch a sketch, Rubik's cube, and slinky on my shelf. I watch Steven Spielberg films on Netflix and buy used Alf and Beavis and Butthead T-shirts from the thrift shop.

And maybe that is pathetic or avoiding reality and holding on to the past. But it makes me happy. And most people will agree when they recall that first movie they saw in the cinema or when a song from their childhood plays on the radio. And though I will never be able to go back to my childhood, thankfully I have so many ways to relive it.

This article also appears here: https://medium.com/fml-or-bust/eight-things-i-miss-about-childhood-2b0a262bbdc4