I got a tour of a children’s museum recently (dream come true!). At this particular museum they had a really fun interaction. Well, it was an experience designed to teach small children about savings accounts (yuck!) but that’ll make more sense later.
In this interaction, there is a room full of balls with a giant piggy bank suspended in the air. Kids would grab a ball, turn a crank, and watch the ball wind around the room and eventually drop into the piggy bank above their heads. In the room is a meter showing how full you’ve filled the bank. When the bank finally gets full, a SURPRISE! HATCH! at the bottom of the bank releases all of the balls as they rain from the sky. The kids go crazy, scream in delight at the awe of such a surprise.
When the person showing me around mentioned they do adult nights, I got so excited! I immediately imagined the adults filling up the bank. Oh to witness their childlike wonder when the hatch opens and releases SURPRISE! BALLS!. I love to see adults in a rare state of awe and delight—so beautiful!
But no. They said that the adults form teams and try to fill up the piggy bank faster than the other teams. The goal is to win, the balls are irrelevant to them.
THE GOAL IS TO WIN?! THE BALLS ARE IRRELEVANT!!!!!!!!????
It’s happening everywhere
As soon as I heard that, I got hit with this rush of flashbacks to other moments:
Every time it unexpectedly starts pouring! I get excited to laugh, play, and enjoy the romance of it all, but the adults I’m with say “My hair! Can we go inside?”
Driving past a Rainforest Cafe! I get excited to go in and enjoy the experience, but the adults I’m with say “That place is for kids, I’m too old for that.”
Seeing a toy high on a shelf! I get excited to stand on my tippy toes, reach high up to interact with it, but the adult I’m with says “Be careful with that, it could be worth money some day!”
There are moments to experience awe, wonder, amazement, and fun everywhere. But adults just won’t let themselves!
The adults have no idea what they’re doing
My dad was a classic traveling businessman working in sales (think: suits, airline miles, tee times with execs). I grew up not really knowing him because he was always headed somewhere else. He loved us! He just had a ladder to climb. And the world had done a very convincing job of telling him that the ladder was the point of life.
So while he was gone, I was home watching TV!!
I was a kid in the 90s and the TV was amazing. So much color, creativity, play, humor. Messages about loving your neighbor, being curious, sharing, playing, feeling your feelings, being a good citizen of the world. It was social and moral philosophy delivered in bright color with great music.
But sometimes I would look up from the TV at the actual adults around me and…they weren’t really doing any of that.
Instead, the adults were stressed, angry, obsessed with money and being the best, and they were weirdly mean to each other in small ways all the time. They certainly weren’t sharing or playing or being curious or joyful or kind. They were too busy critiquing celebrities’ facelifts, worrying if they actually looked how old they are (???), whining about how long the line at the bank was, and really just complaining about everything and everyone all the time.
Don’t even get me started on the first time I learned about WAR! I kept asking my teacher, “But WHY?! Why are we doing that?! We’ve been doing it for centuries?? Killing people because of THAT?!” My teacher would give me an answer, but it still didn’t justify what I was hearing. So I’d ask why to get deeper and deeper hoping to understand.
I did this with every subject and was never given a satisfying answer that made real sense. What I noticed was that the adults’ answers always, eventually, fell apart. Every question I had about societal “norms”—there was no moment where someone said “…and THIS is the reason!” that actually held up.
It became pretty clear to me that the adults had no idea what they were doing.
I wasn’t scared, though! I was too busy observing, being so interested as to how the adults were just okay with what is “normal” even though it didn’t make any sense. I grew to believe that the adults were idiots. I mean, they were doing literally everything wrong!!
So, as a kid, I decided that someday it would be MY job to fix everything. And I kept that to myself because I knew the adults were too stupid to even understand.
What the heck happened to everyone
I’m an adult now, regretfully. I’ve spent my life observing, studying, and understanding what’s “normal”. It’s my favorite hobby but also my life’s purpose. So I can help adults undo, unlearn, and ungrow-up.
Here’s what I’ve figured out:
The adults don’t start out being so painfully boring. Nobody does! They were born curious and joyful and full of love and completely unbothered by the concept of winning, being the best, or getting to THE TOP. They just played! Loved! Were curious! Felt full, big emotions! They just were…them.
And then, slowly, the world crams them into a mold. Rewards them for being quiet, following the rules, staying in line, being the very best at everything they do, and being as normal as possible. But to be the best at being normal, you have to achieve more and more ideal standards. The ultimate goal for most adults?
To be the very best most ideal version of normal!!
But the world also keeps moving the award of “Best at being the most ideal version of normal” just out of reach so they’ll keep buying things to try to catch up. The world tells them what to want, how to measure their worth, what success looks like. And they listen, because it’s what everyone else is doing! And it feels safe and comfortable to fit in.
It’s really not their fault!! It happens to everyone. And it is intentional. Because when the adults are distracted by constantly improving themselves and reaching an ideal (that the worst people have designed to be unattainable) they are easier to control.
[!!!] Uh oh! Meg’s being doomy and gloomy and a bit of a buzzkill again [!!!]
But there’s hope
The way out is to tap into humanity, love, joy, curiosity, and play. Just like we were all born to do. The adults want us to think doing this is nonsensical and “childish”. But “childish” is a term created to keep us alienated from what we were all supposed to be this whole time.
Remember what’s actually important
My dad ultimately got early-onset dementia. When he first started getting sick and had an understanding of what was happening, he spent most of our conversations apologizing. All that success chasing, his obsession with getting bigger and better things, all the flights, the ladder that never had a top. What he regretted most was being gone. He kept saying he wished he’d been there. He prioritized the wrong things.
While he was actively dying, when I sat by his bedside measuring the minutes between each breath (!!!), the hospice nurses kept asking if there was anything I had left to say. “Maybe he’s waiting to hear something before he goes?” As they left the room I held his hand. I took a deep breath and forgave him. I told him that he actually changed my life for the better. And I made him a promise that I’m going to do everything I can to fix everything.
The kid is still in there
You were born absolutely shining! You came in big and curious and full of love and completely certain that joy was the whole point of life. And the world came along and told you that is naive and “childish” and to shut up, follow the rules, and get in line. And you did, because that’s what everyone else was doing.
But that kid didn’t go anywhere. They’re still in there, wanting to play in the rain and they’re DESPERATE to experience a Rainforest Cafe. There are surprise balls dropping all around you, moments of awe to have, and childlike wonder is around every corner.
You just have to let yourself enjoy it!
Stumbled across your post on Instagram recapping this beautiful essay, and as a museum worker and educator, I RANNN to read and subscribe!
It really is so simple and so beautiful and soooo complex at the same time: stop getting in your own way and just let your Self ENJOYYYYY
The devastating thing is that I’m seeing these things echoed in actual children as well, older elementary school into middle school. If we as adults cannot tend to our inner children, how can we preserve and enhance our children’s actual childhood?!
This post is so timely - in a world where we're unleashing technology that we're told can't be controlled and starting new wars every month - the adults are not ok, and they don't know what they are doing! This needs to be shouted from the rooftops daily. I love this invitation to choose something else, to go back to our child selves and check in, and spend time in that mindset instead. This post is a gift, thank you!