“The Child is father of the Man,” wrote William Wordsworth, marveling at the enchantment of the child’s early experience and delight in play.
CERC: The formative period of childhood cultivates in the young a love of life, a sense of adventure, and an imaginative world filled with wonder. As the child in Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses observes, “The world is so filled with a number of things, / I think we should all be happy as kings.” However, when outdoor fun, fairy tales, and games are condemned as forms of idleness, a waste of time, and useless activities
that divorce children from the harshness of reality and the seriousness of life, then a utilitarian view of school and life reduces man to an economic being, rather than a child created for happiness. Utilitarianism subverts the classical-Christian ideal that man works in order to play, and that wonder is the beginning of knowledge. more
images via Pinterest & Vintage.es
Twilight Zone…Kick The Can 1962
Epilogue:
Sunnyvale Rest, a dying place for ancient people, who have forgotten the fragile magic of youth. A dying place for those who have forgotten that childhood, maturity, and old age are curiously intertwined and not separate. A dying place for those who have grown too stiff in their thinking – to visit – The Twilight Zone.
MJA What a great article. I’m too emotional to comment. The freedom I had in my childhood is impossible to imagine today
I truly pity ………….
YEAH, So what does this have to do withTrump?….snicker/giggle/chortle…..LOL’S…
Imagine a “Show and Tell” in school today.
A kid brings in a photo of his Dad gutting a deer in their back yard.
The kid says “My Dad hit him right through the throat with an arrow, then he had to drag him (coulda been a her) about a hundred yards to the truck. Then he hung him up on the tree by our house and gutted him/her. Just imagine!
Moetom said it best! Cherished memories indeed. I remember riding on a bigger friends shoulders trying to bring others down and riding trees too! So much freedom, such a great life. So sorry for kids today!
Anon, they don’t have show-and-tell in school anymore because some kids don’t have fabulous things to Show-and-tell (and it has to be all about the things…God forbid a kid get creative and make something to show, or put that free Obamaphone to work and take an amazing photo of something in nature). Everything must be “fair” and “equal” and therefore everyone must sit down and shut up and not share. It’s better this way. Just as any communist.
Oh the places we went, a childhood to do within reason as much as possible that was not misspent. Kids, nowadays just aren’t as free as we were back in the 50’s and 60’s to roam freely, to take risks (even stupid ones and hopefully learn from them) and just have fun without the constant restraint of overbearing parents. We (my wife and I) didn’t tell our folks of a lot of the stuff we did as kids until we were in our 30’s and 40’s (we would have been in deep doo if they knew everything we did and they and we knew it) and our kids don’t believe most of it even though some of it was embellished but most of it was true. I’m going to probably get into trouble with my kids when I tell my grandkids stories about growing up back then, so be it. How else will they learn the truth (for the most part) about my childhood.
If they’re old enough to play by themselves, they’re old enough to sort chunks of coal or grease machinery while it’s running …
We now have a 74 y/o childish socialist with a childish outlook on life and a stunted view of reality running for Preznit.
(there is a marked difference between ‘childish’ and ‘childlike’)
This is why we have grandchildren. To remind us of the wonder that is childhood…
childhood is a recent invention.
throughout most of history children had to work along side their parents if they wanted to eat.
once we reached this era of personal freedom and limited government which provided for “care free childhoods” and high standard of living we went to work building a giant government to tear it down and restrict our freedom all while lamenting it’s loss.
how typically human of us.