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One of my favorite things to see on my job is when a parent gets on an elevator with their small children and the kids cannot wait to press the elevator buttons.
Sometimes the kid is still too much of a tyke to actually reach the buttons. But they will try.
A lot of times, even the babies that can’t walk and that are in their parent’s arms or in a stroller will reach for those elevator buttons.
And it reminds me: How great it really was-— and still is— to be a little kid, sometimes. Even nowadays.
All around is a world of so many things undiscovered, so many questions to be asked, so much learning to get into; it really is all so new.
Sure there are lessons to be learned and boundaries to be observed, usually by trial and error...and the stern look and/or admonishment of a parent.
To me, one of the true true greatest of sins is to rob and/or otherwise deny a child of the joyful experience of being a child, whether it’s through various forms of abuse or by allowing them to witness things that shouldn’t be witnessed.
I mean, while I had some rough spots in my childhood (as most...if not all children do, I think), on the whole, I was able to enjoy it while it lasted.
In my early twenties, I didn’t think of my childhood in that way.
I thought that there were some good spots; I could even say that I was loved even then but, on the whole, all that I could think of was the pain that I went through.
Then in my mid-20’s, I began to read biographies of people who objectively had it much worse than I (probably the best of this genre was the late Dr. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings).
Inside and outside 12-Step recovery rooms, peers and even elders would tell their stories of the painful things that happened to them or that they witnessed.
Every once in a great while, I would see little kids in what I could easily understand as painful and frightening situations and circumstances still straining to find whatever joy that could be found. (Thinkng about some of those situations that I witnessed is...painful. I DO hurt for them.)
As I read and witnessed and talked and listened— much as a child does, I think— my own thinking about my own childhood began to change.
I wouldn’t say that it was perfect or even idyllic a lot of times.
But a lot of times it was just that.
So the next time you’re on an elevator and a little kid gets on...if it’s not too much trouble and if it won’t slow you down from reaching your eventual destination, allow the little terror(s) to press the elevator button (or at least try).
Simply because it’s what little kids do. It’s who they are.
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