Is Childhood Really The Happiest Time of Your Life?

[Satchmo Distel]

If you have shit parents, I can't imagine childhood being very pleasant. You're imprisoned in their routines and carted around to relatives who bore you to death. How can that be worse than being an adult where at least you have the freedom to make your own mistakes and live in your own space, no matter how grim.

There's a lot more desolation in childhood than is recognized by the romanticization of those years.

[the]

If you have shit parents, I can't imagine childhood being very pleasant. You're imprisoned in their routines and carted around to relatives who bore you to death. How can that be worse than being an adult where at least you have the freedom to make your own mistakes and live in your own space, no matter how grim.

On the upside, you can later reap the reward of overcompensating by spending your adult life being incredibly brusque and snippy with people who have the faintest whiff of an an adverse opinion to you on message boards. It would seem.

[bgmnts]

You have genuine energy and can sleep for more than 6 hours at a time. I haven't had either gift since I was 12ish.

So yes, childhood rocks.

[imitationleather]

I have had way more poon as an adult than I ever did as a kid.

[Twed]

Childhood was the happiest time of my life, but it was somebody else's childhood. I was just peekin' attem.

[timebug]

My parents were great, no issues there; the bugbear for me was school. Hated it from day one to the final hours. Made some good mates, a few lifelong ones, but the actual teaching process,the teachers and especially the fucking sports, (I am not, a sporty person,should it have escaped your notice?)did my head in. Our curriculum was around fifty years out of date,and no attempt was made to update it. I shudder remembering the wasted hours, spent listening to stuff that was easily picked up in a few minutes!
Only bonus, we did have a rather good school library in my senior school! (Secondary Modern as it was known, pre-comprehensive and all that toss!) And I did have some great times with the aforementioned pals, plotting to overthrow 'the system' and 'sticking it to the man'; but somehow, never quite getting around to it!

[Buelligan]

There were some great moments in childhood, getting up before sunrise to sneak out with my brother into the world, sometimes in summer we'd go over the fields and watch rabbits playing and the apricot sun rising over the barley and the mist.  Or after bonfire night (which we were never allowed to join) to look at the smouldering ashes surrounded by frosty frozen mud, black and white, hot and cold, collect spent firework casings, choose our favourite designs.  A few blue eggs in the nest.  A wood of bluebells.

Or before, standing deep in purple bougainvillea paper and watching a cobra rise up, lying in the dark listening to the bushbabies come to steal food, staring down into the depths of the reef at the beauty unimaginable. 

These were happy moments, jewels set in unmeasured miles of comfortless bullied dearth.

Free of all that now and better for it.  Ding Dong.

[poo]

Standing naked wanks in Nan's coal shed.

[madhair60]

No. It was absolute honking cack.

[Cuellar]

Childhood was sort of fine, it was just there. As soon as we hit secondary school everything went to shit.

[madhair60]

Childhood was sort of fine, it was just there. As soon as we hit secondary school everything went to shit.

Oh yeah? How exactly? (Boots up Word)

[Cuellar]

Oh no, that's all you're getting mate

[Cuellar]

Actually yeah, everything since childhood has been a bit shit, so yes. Childhood is happiest time life.

[idunnosomename]

I have had way more poon as an adult than I ever did as a kid.

I've had about the same

[Quote]

No one tells to go out and get a shit job, that's one of the main benefits. Everyone indulges you, everyone thinks you're cute and loveable, someone else pays for everything, you're so simple and easily pleased that just pushing some toy cars around a carpet is fun. All day everyday is devoted to fun and pleasure...

[Beagle 2]

Ignorance is bliss.

[Shit Good Nose]

Despite having great parents and a nice upbringing, I think I preferred my late teens/early 20s where I had the additional freedom of being an adult and able to drive and go out when and wherever I wanted, but before the additional responsibilities and worries that typically come when one gets older - a stable job/career, partner, mortgage, children etc etc.  I also wasn't all that into school - pretty much exactly what timebug said above.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

There were some great moments in childhood, getting up before sunrise to sneak out with my brother into the world, sometimes in summer we'd go over the fields and watch rabbits playing and the apricot sun rising over the barley and the mist.  Or after bonfire night (which we were never allowed to join) to look at the smouldering ashes surrounded by frosty frozen mud, black and white, hot and cold, collect spent firework casings, choose our favourite designs.  A few blue eggs in the nest.  A wood of bluebells.

Or before, standing deep in purple bougainvillea paper and watching a cobra rise up, lying in the dark listening to the bushbabies come to steal food, staring down into the depths of the reef at the beauty unimaginable. 

These were happy moments, jewels set in unmeasured miles of comfortless bullied dearth.

Free of all that now and better for it.  Ding Dong.

Coo, that sounds nice.

* notices mentioning of cobras , bushbabies and reefs*

Now, wait a minute...

[Icehaven]

You're imprisoned in their routines and carted around to relatives who bore you to death. How can that be worse than being an adult where at least you have the freedom to make your own mistakes and live in your own space, no matter how grim.

I hated being a child, largely for exactly this reason. Not that my Mum was a bad parent at all, it's just I wanted to do my own thing and I always couldn't wait until I was old enough to be independent and not have to go along with plans made for me. Didn't help that I had to go and stay with my family several nights a week while she was working, which I hated with a  passion, and it felt bloody great when I was finally allowed to stay at home on my own when I was about 14 or 15.

I have a clear memory of being very small, probably 4 or 5, listening to my mum and some other adults towering over me and talking, and me not being able to keep up with how quickly they spoke or what they were talking about so trying to join in by climbing up on the back of a sofa to get to their height and jabbering nonsense at what I perceived to be their pace, and being annoyed that it didn't work and I couldn't now magically understand them.
I've never wanted kids myself and I do wonder if that's partly because I disliked being a child so much myself, I wouldn't want to inflict that state on anyone else. But it's probably more just because I like going to the pub. 

[Beagle 2]

I hated being a child, largely for exactly this reason. Not that my Mum was a bad parent at all, it's just I wanted to do my own thing and I always couldn't wait until I was old enough to be independent and not have to go along with plans made for me. Didn't help that I had to go and stay with my family several nights a week while she was working, which I hated with a  passion, and it felt bloody great when I was finally allowed to stay at home on my own when I was about 14 or 15.

I have a clear memory of being very small, probably 4 or 5, listening to my mum and some other adults towering over me and talking, and me not being able to keep up with how quickly they spoke or what they were talking about so trying to join in by climbing up on the back of a sofa to get to their height and jabbering nonsense at what I perceived to be their pace, and being annoyed that it didn't work and I couldn't now magically understand them.
I've never wanted kids myself and I do wonder if that's partly because I disliked being a child so much myself, I wouldn't want to inflict that state on anyone else. But it's probably more just because I like going to the pub.

You can still go to the pub once you have kids, they just tend to stand on the back of chairs jabbering bollocks at you, but it's easily ignored.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

There were some great moments in childhood, getting up before sunrise to sneak out with my brother into the world, sometimes in summer we'd go over the fields and watch rabbits playing and the apricot sun rising over the barley and the mist.  Or after bonfire night (which we were never allowed to join) to look at the smouldering ashes surrounded by frosty frozen mud, black and white, hot and cold, collect spent firework casings, choose our favourite designs.  A few blue eggs in the nest.  A wood of bluebells.

Or before, standing deep in purple bougainvillea paper and watching a cobra rise up, lying in the dark listening to the bushbabies come to steal food, staring down into the depths of the reef at the beauty unimaginable. 

These were happy moments, jewels set in unmeasured miles of comfortless bullied dearth.

Free of all that now and better for it.  Ding Dong.

Did you grow up in Narnia or something?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Despite having great parents and a nice upbringing, I think I preferred my late teens/early 20s where I had the additional freedom of being an adult and able to drive and go out when and wherever I wanted, but before the additional responsibilities and worries that typically come when one gets older - a stable job/career, partner, mortgage, children etc etc.  I also wasn't all that into school - pretty much exactly what timebug said above.

Yup. It's like a theme park version of adulthood.

I didn't have much fun at school up until the sixth form, when all of the wankers left, leaving only the ones that actually wanted to be there.

[Chollis]

I loved it personally. Halcyon days.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

There were certainly some bright times. Halogen days.

[Absorb the anus burn]

There was certainly some bad breath. Halitosis days.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Running down to the newsagent and buying Green Lantern comics with my pocket money. Hal Jordan days.

[kngen]

Staving off rickets and scurvy. Haliborange days.


Nah, it was shit. Hated school. Hated my dad (who hated me). My earliest memories are those of fear (of aforementioned father) and my early adolescence was a sprint away from that towards the superficial trappings of adulthood (drink, drugs, sex, violence), and it's only 30 or so years later that I can really make peace (as best I can) with the whole thing. My past is a foreign country with punitive taxes and an unpleasant smell.

[Small Man Big Horse]

My parents were great, no issues there; the bugbear for me was school. Hated it from day one to the final hours. Made some good mates, a few lifelong ones, but the actual teaching process,the teachers and especially the fucking sports, (I am not, a sporty person,should it have escaped your notice?)did my head in. Our curriculum was around fifty years out of date,and no attempt was made to update it. I shudder remembering the wasted hours, spent listening to stuff that was easily picked up in a few minutes!
Only bonus, we did have a rather good school library in my senior school! (Secondary Modern as it was known, pre-comprehensive and all that toss!) And I did have some great times with the aforementioned pals, plotting to overthrow 'the system' and 'sticking it to the man'; but somehow, never quite getting around to it!

I liked school at first, mainly (as I later learnt) because all of the teachers were terrible at their jobs and just let us mess about most of the time, but once I got to ten years old I went off it big time, and absolutely hated secondary school with a passion.

I'd say the happiest time of my life was 18 - 27, and then the last six months or so, but I'm sure it'll all go terribly wrong soon!

[pancreas]

+1 on the honking cack. Look at it this way—now you're an adult you can eat as much buffalo mozzarella as you like. You can just hold it in your hands and rip great hunks out of it with your teeth. No-one can stop you. You can do this all day, or until you are sick. Much the same is true of halloumi.

[greenman]

My parents were great, no issues there; the bugbear for me was school. Hated it from day one to the final hours. Made some good mates, a few lifelong ones, but the actual teaching process,the teachers and especially the fucking sports, (I am not, a sporty person,should it have escaped your notice?)did my head in. Our curriculum was around fifty years out of date,and no attempt was made to update it. I shudder remembering the wasted hours, spent listening to stuff that was easily picked up in a few minutes!
Only bonus, we did have a rather good school library in my senior school! (Secondary Modern as it was known, pre-comprehensive and all that toss!) And I did have some great times with the aforementioned pals, plotting to overthrow 'the system' and 'sticking it to the man'; but somehow, never quite getting around to it!

Yes similar, home life was fine but school was for the most part a dislikeble experience, didn't have an issue with sport(although going to school in Gloucester all the boys were constantly being pushed towards spinal injury in the hope of creating a rugby star) but it was all so fucking boring, I was hardly some educational misfit but besides maybe the odd bit of competition on maths tests I remember never having much interest in any of it, constantly counting down the minutes, hours and days.

When it wasn't boring it was stressful, teenagers are for the most part total cunts in my experience and spending half your life interacting with a load of mini legend garys constantly jostling for pointless one up manship I found highly unpleasant without even being someone who experienced much in the way of overt bullying. The moment I left sixth forum I cut off pretty much any kind of interaction with such people and have found life vastly more pleasurable for it.